To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Celestia lit her horn for light as she explored the surprisingly large crevice that was the treasury. Most of the walls had been replaced with marble, but there was still some evidence that this had been a mere cave at one point, exposed rock here and there, as well as the ceiling being a dead giveaway.

Finally, she found several torches to light on pillars. It appeared that there was eight of them, all massive to hold the place together and solid for millenniums.

Various Trinkets and jewellery were sprawled across the floor everywhere. Wooden chests, some open some not also aplenty. Sprinkle in the fact that there was hundreds of gold coins piled up, and Celestia had her work cut out for her. She didn't mind, glad to even be here.

An hour of searching went by, Celestia taking her time to sift through things carefully to not miss the necklace that contained the Sanctuary by memory. She was beginning to get slightly frustrated, she had already searched around sixty percent of the stuff in here, she felt.

No matter, she told herself. Stay patient.

After another half hour she felt her eye twitching.

"Where in Tartarus name is it!"

She kept looking, looking and looking. A few minutes later, and she was sure she had checked everything. Realization was starting to sink in, but the denial was stronger.

"I see. I simply missed it. I shall go over everything again."

She was speaking to herself far too much these days.

After another half hour of rushed searching, her temper flared. She smashed her hoof down.

"Damn it! Where is the blasted thing."

Nearly a hundred ponies flooded the hallway of the castle.

The guards never stood a chance against the flood.

The doors to the Celestia's royal chambers were slammed with a makeshift battering ram.

It was half an hour later, more fervent searching later, that it began.

"No... this can't be happening right now. It's here somewhere, I know it. Stay calm Celestia, stay calm."

It was creeping up in her mind, the horrible possibility that all of this could've been for naught. Blood pounded in her ears, her heart was pounding and she had to stop herself from completely losing control to the fears.

Her wretched face pleaded to fate. She looked up towards the ceiling as though it was the sky

"Please... don't make me do this. Don't you know how much I've suffered already? How much we've sacrificed? Enough is enough!" her voice cracked, "how long I've spent telling myself it wouldn't need to happen? Months of lost sleep over it?! How can you be this cruel to me, after all this time? You're going to make me do it anyway?! WHAT THE HELL DID I DO TO DESERVE ALL OF THIS!"

Maverick, leading the ponies inside, began to search and confiscate anything they could. At her desk, after smashing the filing cabinets lock, and opening it, they began rifling through everything inside.

She had been ranting for minutes to no one but herself, in the open air.

Now, she stopped all of a sudden.

She started laughing hysterically.

"Ahahahaha! Of course! As if I expected anything different! Always getting in my way, just like always, aren't you?!"

Fate wouldn't have it any other way. Fate had always been her enemy. She would never surrender to it, she would prove it wrong... she did have it in her....

Maverick stopped when he found it. Five pages, torn carefully from a book, delicately handled and placed in a folder for protection. Just below them, another folder existed which seemed to be associated with the five pages. He began slowly reading through the five pages before he would move on to the second folder which Celestia had marked as some kind of plan, and they were lightly tied together with a hole punch and string.

She was crying without realizing it, but she had taken on a crazed look despite it. She really didn't know what she was doing or saying right now. Her breathing sped up again.

"With no options you think I won't do it?! After I've already come this far?!" She was yelling, bordering on screaming at this point.

Her laugh resumed, completely unhinged. She didn't care anymore.

"I'll do it alright, you cannot stop me. That's right. I've already prepared everything after all. Done all the research. I'll do it... I'll..."

Maverick could not believe what he had just read.

The five pages read approximately like this:

"Long ago, there was a dark wizard named Vortex. who dreamed of greater destiny. He allowed himself to become deluded so far that he was willing to do anything for further power. Vortex had grown jealous of the princesses, and knew that the potential of their kind was higher than the three tribes. He could reach it, he told himself. Unknowingly, to the small town of Wessex, he carved out a dark summoning circle that encompassed the entire town. It was the most tragic bad stroke of luck that no one caught him creating it. He did it during the night and carefully, over the course of months, working slowly and hiding any traces so that they could not be seen by day.

"One day, when it was completed, the tragedy unfolded. This dark wizard, whose name should be lost to time, came to the centre of the circle which encroached the entire town. No pony realized what was happening until it was already too late. This wizard was powerful, very powerful, and his boosted ego caused him to attempt something no mortal ever should.

"His dark will, stronger than anypony could've ever expected, overpowered every single resident of the town. Countless sleeping ponies had their lives stolen from them in a flash as he activated the dark ritual of the summoning circle. The few ponies that were awake, only felt pain and struggled but for a moment before they were destroyed and converted into life energy, having lost the contest of wills against him. All of the energy surged towards the centre of the circle and towards him.

"But while he may have been strong enough to overpower the individuals, he had miscalculated. He may have been powerful for a unicorn, but it was not nearly enough for what he was attempting. His soul, which we believe he had damaged himself to open a hole for which the life energy could enter, apparently wasn't ready for the overflowing life energy from the equine lives he had stolen, whose density was far greater than most would dare to handle. He poured fourth all his effort to capture and pour the life energy into his soul. He suffered endlessly we assume, in an attempt to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Unfortunately for him, but fortunate for all of us, his soul could not handle the sheer power he had brought to himself, and it overwhelmed him entirely. His soul shattered and collapsed after it became excessively overfilled from life energy, and he perished as a result. We do not know the exact reason he failed, but we assume that it was never possible for him in the first place. We only have a few writings in his journal to go by, from before he perished.

"No one will ever forget the tragedy of finding this town, Wessex, completely barren of life and struggling to figure out just what had actually happened. It is a harrowing reminder that there are areas of life and death that should never be touched upon."

Maverick's eyes seared as he read the words. What in the world...? He dreaded continuing on to the second folder. He hoofed it off to Straight Side to read while yelling he found something important. He started on the second folder.

Her breathing was ragged, and she wasn't sure if she was having a panic attack.

Gone. Missing. Lost. Where?

The necklace was nowhere to be found. She had gone through everything so many times now. She cursed everything. Were you seriously trying to tell her all of this had been for nothing? How much of Luna's precious time had she wasted? Was she even still alive? How many lives had been lost in the war alone? Her mind ripped back and forth and the despair of it all broke her.

Celestia screamed, over and over. Until her voice started breaking.

She decided that wasn't enough. She may have had used more magic today than she probably ever had, but she wasn't done yet.

She sent out blasts to several parts of the vault in random directions, coins flying everywhere and all miscellaneous things being ruined or thrown around by the shockwaves.

She was going to have to do it. Something she had told herself she would NEVER do every single night since that insidious five pages had first been read by her. The idea had taken root immediately, and even Celestia couldn't believe that she was considering it at all at first. It haunted her, and remembering the Sanctuary being held by the griffins had be the shining light of her life in relief of it. That way she could forget it like some dark memory and pretend it never happened. Like so many things she'd already done to in her long life. Her relief to know that she wouldn't have to do it had saved her from having a breakdown in the pressure of seeing her sister's slow demise. However, her mind and actions had never fully aligned, for while she told herself she would never do it, her actions of preparing for it had been going on nonetheless.... It was like she had known it would all come to this in the end. And now, after all of this, EVERYTHING, she was going to have to—

Maverick's horror only got worse as his eyes widened again. Oh gods, it was right there in front of him. He couldn't believe what he was reading.

The second folder was simple. Princess Celestia had thoroughly plotted out the exact magical dimensions of a summoning circle over the city of Oblatio. It was there, clear as day, that she had every intent to sacrifice tens of thousands of ponies who had recently moved there. It mentioned "backup plan" right in the beginning, but there it was all the same. The damning evidence. All the details were there, directly comparable to the dark story he had just read. He still couldn't believe it. He'd have to hoof this to the wizards to confirm the findings. But if even he could tell, there was no way they wouldn't come to the same obvious conclusion, besides understanding the magic a bit more.

"We have what we were looking for, and it is far, far worse than anything we could've imagined. We have to get this out and now, and begin preparations. Everyone come here and read this for now," said Maverick, as he motioned for everypony to take a turn reading what he just had.

Shocked gasps and intense reading followed as each pony saw it through, and soon the path of Equestria was unequivocally apparent. They had to act.

—sacrifice the city of Oblatio, just like she had been despairing over for months and months now. She was going to have to waste even more lives to save Luna. But it was no waste at all, wasn't it? Her sister would be returning to her. Yes, that was right... no amount of mortals could ever compare to her beautiful sister in the end... her only immortal companion and family.... Who she had never even had the chance to have a proper conversation with even since coming back. She could never give up on hearing Luna forgive her, on finally having a real conversation with her again that wasn't strained by tension, and she wanted to laugh again over the fact that if she hadn't forgiven her before now, she never would now knowing everything that had happened.

She collapsed in a heap and balled her eyes out at how unfair it all was. Her world was spinning, and she hated everything. All this time she had wasted, being spineless and unable to go through with it to save her sister. Once the town had enough ponies there, she could've started immediately. How many lives would that have saved? The war could've been avoided entirely. Did it even matter? She had been preparing the magic circle every time she had visited there, and tried desperately to ignore what she was doing. She had even had the city designed in a circular fashion to make the construction of the circle easier. What a walking contradiction she was. She still couldn't believe she had done and ordered it, knowing the implications early on, and even now.

Inner flames started simmered inside her, begging for release quietly, and a dark cloud sidled over her mind.

And now she was truly going to have to do it. There was still finishing touches to be made to the circle, and she'd have to move out Luna carefully after it was completed, and enact the ritual. The sanctuary may have been legendary for how much energy it could store, but having the near infinite amount of excess energy created by the ritual meant that the chances of failure were next to zero. That's how powerful the lives in Oblatio were. Her little ponies made her proud. It was basically impossible to fail - even as the life energy slowly faded away and was lost due to the unstable nature of it, there'd be in excess enough of it even after half of it had gone. She could fill her sister's soul and revive her. Perhaps there was even enough to attempt a 'Divine Rebirth', she pondered. She'd have to make a judgment call at the time. She was confident enough that she understood how to achieve it, since the mechanics were the same, only the scale had gone to a level which scared most, and obviously nopony had ever had access to that kind of energy reserve before. Her sisters only hope may be it in the first place now, she was unsure if the standard Life Convergence spell would be enough to save her at this point. It terrified her to consider that.

Thoughts swarming an incoherent mess, it was as she was recovering that she saw it.

For some strange reason, an ancient breastplate, custom design, had broken apart and fallen before her. Probably because of her reckless magics.

What she saw lining the inside near the neck made her heart skip a beat. There it was... a necklace lightly taped on the inside of it. What....

She looked around and bit her lip to re-affirm that this wasn't a dream with the feeling of pain. It was real.

She lifted it out and broke the tape easily with the magic. Who knew why it was in there, and who cared? She had it now. There surrounded by gold and inside the necklace was what she had been searching for, for so long now... she stared at it, it was sparkling even with little lighting.

The flames were gone. The shadow over her mind began to disappear.

The Inner World Sanctuary. The legendary amethyst. Right there, in her magical and careful grasp.

Tension eased from her body, and she still found herself in disbelief. She stared at it for the longest time. The past few hours hit her in a wave at the absurdity of it all, and she gave a different kind of laugh. All that agonizing over the worst and now she felt so very foolish.

Fate had been playing cruel jokes on her it seemed. That was far too close. Relief flooded her in waves. Thank goodness, from the bottom of her heart she told herself, that she did not need to increase the needless bloodshed. She had found the Sanctuary. All that was left was to gather life energy, which would take no more than a few days culling forestry and collecting, and then save Luna. Simple.

She broke her trance, and quickly remembered what it was she really needed to do. Her war effort was done, and she needed to return home. The homing device she had enchanted with her signature would allow her to return to Canterlot. It assisted her in long distance teleportation that normally wouldn't be possible. She had set it up before leaving, so that she'd be ready to return as quickly as possible as soon as acquiring the Sanctuary.

But there was still one final risk to take. One that she dreaded doing, but knew she had to. There was a very high chance that the simple life energy of forests would be too low quality for Luna this deep into the decay of her soul at this point. She needed a spark of the highest possible density life energy mixed in to get things going and to ensure success of the entire process.

Doing it was going to be painful.

It was simple. Souls repaired themselves slowly if they were only damaged lightly. She had prepared herself for this.

She was going to use her magic to rip off a tiny portion of her own soul and convert it, the densest life energy she knew of, and store it into the Sanctuary here and now. She could still function fine with a minimally damaged soul, and it was better to begin the healing process sooner rather than later. The main risk was accidentally injuring her soul too much. She'd have to be extremely careful.

She went over the spell in her mind over and over. She had to get this right. Grasping ones own soul with magic had to be one of the strangest feelings in life, and she knew it'd be very hard to stay focused with such a sensation going on. But she'd have to fight through the pain because losing focus meant possibly causing more harm than she could handle.

Finally, she knew it was time after practising it mentally one more time. No one could truly prepare you having your soul touched. For the first time in a long while, she truly felt nervous.

Lighting her horn, she created the spiritual magic required, and formed it into a grasping spectral appendage, with several fingers. Carefully and slowly, she watched it go through her fur and then skin until she felt the outline of her soul. Feeling it gave her goosebumps and a million warning signs hit her brain which couldn't comprehend what was truly going on despite her consciousness knowing.

She forcefully grabbed and pinched a portion of it, and it was the strangest pain she had ever felt. It was indescribable and overwhelmingly painful, and for a moment she felt further empathy for Luna who had somehow felt something worse than this while trapped on the moon and defenseless. She grit her teeth as her entire body tingled and brain became mushy from the feeling. If Luna could handle more than this, so could do this at the minimum.

She wanted to scream from the pain as she pulled harder and harder, but refused to let her magical grip budge even a little as her brows furrowed in intense concentration.

After around twenty agonizing seconds, her entire being felt a tear that shook her to the core and her magic disappeared for a moment. She felt like something deep and important inside of her was missing now, that was the best way she could describe it. She quickly grabbed onto the portion of the soul while ignoring whatever it was she was feeling and converted it into life energy carefully. She then broke the gold off of the amethyst, freeing it, and guided the energy into it. It collected perfectly, and she stared into the depths. There was the tiniest of glimmers inside as the only indication it was in there. When she magically grasped it, she could feel it more clearly being present inside.

Feeling stranger than she ever had been, she remained sitting and waited to see how much damage had been done. She closed her eyes and remembered the spell her team had taught her that they had used on Luna during the diagnostic stage. This had been something she had actually practised in preparation for this moment, and she cast the scanning field over herself carefully.

After about two minutes of feeling it out, she grinned widely.

Success. It was not even close to enough to be fatal. Now was the time to return home and finish this.

I'm coming to save you, sister.

She started charging up her magic for a long distance teleport, and found it significantly harder to do so then normal. She had expected this, and after a while it was ready. She finished and disappeared from the cold room which had observed a lifetime in but a short few hours....