The Monument to All Your Sins.

Twilight Sparkle was extremely excited, despite all the inconveniences and the fact that it took her a lot to come clean with her friends, she was finally ready, a little disheveled of course, but ready. Rarity was putting the final touches to her wardrobe while on the main balcony of the Canterlot palace, princesses Celestia and Luna were giving an emotional speech to the crowd of ponies and other species that had gathered to celebrate the coronation of the new regent of Equestria.

Twilight lost herself in her thoughts for a moment, recalling everything that had happened in the last months after the defeat of Cousy Glove, Tirak and Chrysalis, it had been a great adventure, and even though for a moment she thought that they didn't make it as usual, friendship overcame adversity and they were victorious and now, she was preparing to take on the greatest responsibility of her entire life, one that, a few years ago and in her wildest dreams, she never thought she could aspire to have and yet, there she was, more than ready.

Rarity was looking at her with a big smile on her face and with tears threatening to run down her face.
Twilight was a little surprised to see her friend so shocked "What's wrong Rarity?" she asked with a giggle.

"Oh it's nothing dear it's just...you look so beautiful" both ponies hugged each other tightly while princess Celestia finished her speech.

"Well my dear, go ahead, dazzle them,” said the white unicorn as she let go of the hug and gave her dress a last adjustment with her magic, Twilight stood firm, took a deep breath and walked determined as Princess Celestia announced.

”Now without further ado, we would like to officially introduce the next ruler of Equestria...Princess Twilight Sparkle!"

The applause was deafening, everyone cheered and rose in jubilation, the young alicorn could see everything from above, she saw her friends, her family, her students, all clamoring her name and dedicating radiant smiles, the emotion she felt was such that she could not avoid shedding a tear before turning to see her mentor, who winked at her and smiled proudly. In a moment the former regents shone their horns in unison, levitating their crowns in the air and merging them into a beautiful new crown with Twilight's cutie mark on it, it glowed, contrasting with the sunset in the sky.

"Now begin the days of the princess of friendship...” Luna began to exclaim as the crown slowly descended.

"Blessed are you!” Celestia finished saying, just as the crown was about to land on Twilight's head.

"¡¡¡¡ LIES!!!!" A shrill scream broke with all the glorious moment, suddenly everyone present was startled, muttering in shock in search of the owner of the voice, Twilight herself found herself searching with her eyes for the source of such an unpleasant interruption and then her eyes were fixed on a hooded figure that was making its way through the crowd.

This one was completely covered with a worn cloak, dirty and leaky, yet it was impossible to discern who or what was hidden under it, those present gradually noticed her, watching in bewilderment as she stood just below the large balcony. Silence reigned for a moment and Twilight was about to raise her voice in protest but her teacher beat her to it.

"In the name of Equestria, what did you say?” asked the sun princess with a calm but authoritative tone, the figure just stood there, completely still, without even looking up.

After a few seconds of silence, the regent insisted, “If you have something to say, say it...”.

"I said it's all lies...” was heard through the bass, those present murmured in confusion while the princesses, like Twilight and her friends, became alert as they sensed that something was wrong.

"What...” Princess Luna started to ask but was interrupted by an even louder rumble.

"THIS IS ALL A DAMN LIE!!!!" the mysterious figure raised his head with fury at the same time that he removed the hood that covered him, revealing to everyone the haggard and bruised face of a unicorn; the image of her face shocked all those who were able to appreciate it at first sight, it was covered with scars of all kinds, the most remarkable being the missing half of one of her ears, an apparent burn that extended across her horn and a huge scar that crossed her face diagonally right between her eyes, the fur that she still had was a yellowish brown and her dull red mane was tied roughly in a small bun behind her head.

Twilight shuddered when she saw the eyes of the mare looking in her direction, she had never seen anything like it, they glowed in a bluish green tone and when she scrutinized them she could see nothing but anger in them, this made her alert and look for her mentor's face to take action, but when she looked for comfort in her mentor's stoicism she only found herself more shocked. Her teacher's face did not reflect serenity or confusion, not even concern, for the first time in all the time that Twilight had been with Celestia, she could not identify the expression on her face, for an instant the princess of friendship scrutinized the eyes of her oldest friend and they seemed completely empty, In a strange moment of shock Twilight looked for comfort in the princess of the night but she found an even more disconcerting panorama, Luna's face was an expression of frozen panic, her fur had turned pale and her pupils had contracted, she almost seemed to have been petrified; For a moment Twilight herself found herself in a rising panic, almost succumbing to uncertainty when the instant was interrupted by Celestia.

"Explain yourself Pony!” she exclaimed in her royal Canterlot voice, when she looked back at her mentor the purple alicorn did not find the strange expression of before, instead she looked again at the imposing and immutable regent, only to turn again to the corrupter of the ceremony.

She looked in the direction of the princesses for a moment longer before a smile spread across her face, then lowered her head, turned around and addressed the expectant crowd.

"Listen to me carefully, inhabitants of this kingdom and the whole world...” Twilight then noticed how this pony had a strange accent when she spoke, she almost seemed to slur her words.

"This day, I come before you for one reason and one reason only, to remove the blindfold from your eyes and let you see the lie in which you live...!” the crowd swirled with different reactions, some murmuring, others shouting and calling for calm and others staring in awe at the bizarre scene.

"All of this, this ceremony, this kingdom, these...goddesses they wish to pay homage to are nothing more than lying, crawling snakes!” panic was beginning to spread like wildfire as more words came out of the unicorn's mouth, some had even already begun to leave the room while others seemed to be glued to their seats. Twilight glanced nervously at Celestia only to appreciate the moment when she made a sly gesture to the guards behind her and they rushed out of the room in a hurry.

"Your peaceful kingdom was built on unspeakable atrocities orchestrated by those you call regents...!" the intensity of the speech rose with each word, Twilight was about to rush to meet them but a slight touch of her mentor's helmet on her shoulder and a furtive glance indicated her that she should stay where she was and stand firm, before this the princess of friendship had no choice but to communicate this same gesture to her friends who were watching her from below and who seemed to be the most willing to stop this chaos.

"Everything you have ever believed in is nothing but a deception, woven with malice and cruelty...” the mare finally began to say as she turned again to look at the three princesses, ”And today...I have come to put an end to it...!"

"How dare you come here today, interrupt this great ceremony and start blaspheming about your princesses!” the sun princess lifted her wings over the balcony as the unicorn once again let out a thunderous laugh and spat on the ground.

"Oh yes, princesses, I had forgotten that's what they liked to be called now...” the mare began to say as she paced back and forth across the main courtyard of the palace without taking her eyes off the balcony ‘I beg your pardon but I still remember them by the title they used to be known by...’ the unicorn finally stopped dead in her tracks, standing up straight and looking directly into Celestia's face "‘QUEEN’".

Twilight was more confused than ever, this pony was acting like a lunatic and seemed extremely unstable, but more confused she found herself when she swore she could hear how her teacher tensed and swallowed saliva; she looked up watching Celestia's face again only to find her with an uneasy expression and a frown on her face, only to look back to Luna's face and see her even worse than she was before, her gaze was now lost and her pallor seemed to have worsened.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!” exclaimed the sun princess in a roar that silenced all the panic and bustle in an instant, even the rambunctious unicorn seemed to have been taken aback by the sudden outburst of apparent fury.

After a moment of total silence, Celestia, with a look of pure determination on her face exclaimed, “Guards!” Suddenly, from all the castle doors leading to the courtyard, dozens of guards came out and quickly took up position, surrounding the mare and pointing their spears.

"Catch her..." said the alicantine finally in a solemn and calm tone while her gaze was fixed on the unicorn, who looked back at her with disdain before lowering her head.

The guards approached cautiously towards the unicorn who remained immobile, in a moment the guards were about to take her between their hooves when, in a quick movement the unicorn launched a powerful kick that sent flying those who were closer. The thrown guards whipped themselves, some against the ground, others against their own companions, screaming in pain while the others took up defensive positions. The next instant the unicorn flashed her horn and from between the mare's robes rose a long sword that startled the guards, the blade of this sword was quite thin and shone in a glow of the same color as that of the mare's horn. For an instant the guards hesitated as to what to do, that is until one who seemed to have a higher rank exclaimed, “Attack,” and then all hell broke loose.

The whole avalanche of guards rushed over the unicorn, raising a cloud of dust that for a moment prevented anyone from seeing anything, Twilight tried to adjust her sight quickly but, before she could even deduce something from the tangle of silhouettes a horrible scream froze her blood. The dust quickly dissipated and the image it unveiled caused the few who still remained in the vicinity to shriek in horror. The guards attacked the mare and she quickly disarmed them and attacked with her sword, severed legs, wings and horns began to adorn the ground and the blood flowing from them began to stain the earth. Twilight watched in horror as one by one the guards were terribly wounded and pushed aside as if they were nothing, meanwhile the unicorn dodged and counterattacked with elegant and accurate movements, almost as if it cost her no effort at all; The dance was almost hypnotic and the princess of friendship was paralyzed by the scene, so much so that she barely noticed when, from the bustle one of the guards' spears was thrown in her direction by the unicorn, Twilight could hardly have reacted to the sudden attack when the spear was repelled by a magical shield of a golden color, the purple alicorn came back to herself as she observed how Princess Celestia had narrowly avoided the attack and now went down to stand next to Twilight.

"Pri...princess Celestia we must do something..." Twilight stammered starting to hyperventilate "Don't be afraid Twilight, everything will be fine..." Celestia even turned to look at her student for comfort, her eyes were fixed on the, now, intruder and attacker.

The princess of friendship followed the gaze of the princess of the sun and found that the chaos of before had been replaced with panic, for a moment she did not find the hostile unicorn and when she managed to locate her fear she climbed one more step, somehow the attacker had slipped through the crowd of guards and had managed to climb the ledges of the castle wall, taking long and precise jumps the mare was getting closer and closer to the balcony where the princesses were. Twilight had reached her limit, she prepared to shoot a magic ray in the direction of the unicorn just as she was making a last jump to reach them, but, before she could do anything, Princess Celestia's golden shield appeared again, blocking a thrust that went straight to the neck of the sun princess.

The mare held onto the edge of the balcony, keeping her sword firmly placed against the magical shield, Twilight watched as the unicorn gave a look of pure hatred to her master, she was looking directly into the eyes of her attacker, with a calm expression that contrasted with the inferno that the celebration had become, Twilight couldn't say for sure, but for a second she thought she saw Celestia give a slight smile to the mare, which seemed to infuriate her even more and in an attempt to thrust her sword even deeper her gaze swerved and collided with Twilight's. The princess of friendship could taste the gaze of the unicorn meeting with a deep and absolute rancor that made her tremble, but, for an instant, the alicorn denoted something else in the depths of her gaze, something that almost seemed, tiredness.

Celestia shone her horn even brighter and the shield burst, hurling the pony away from the balcony and back into the central courtyard. The impact was powerful, so much so that the unicorn was barely able to compose herself enough to land safely on the ground, steadying herself and looking back towards the balcony.

Twilight was blinded for an instant by the flash of the shield and when she regained her sight she found her mentor flying again, this time in front of her and again exclaiming with authority.

"I don't know what drove you to perform this heinous act of violence upon us, but this is your last warning, desist or suffer the consequences,” the unicorn kept a fierce expression on her face without any sign of surrender.

At that moment a roar opened the way to more and more guards that began to pile up in the central courtyard, followed not only by Twilight's friends but also by her brother Shining Armor, her sister-in-law Princess Cadance and her escort of guards of the Crystal Empire. As she looked around, the attacker was finally overpowered, turning to look again at the sun princess who cried out.

"If you flee from here you will be relentlessly pursued, there will be no stopping efforts to apprehend you and make you pay for the crimes committed here today!” the mare gave her one last look of disdain before covering her face with her hood again, putting her sword away and dashing through the chaotic crowd, dodging a couple of guards and finally exiting through the main gate of the garden being chased.

Finally the hubbub seemed to fade little by little as the chase moved further and further away from the castle, Twilight's legs were shaking and she felt dizzy, trying to assimilate what she had just seen, never, since the princesses began their reign, had there been a record of one pony attacking another so brutally, feeling sick, she tried to contain what seemed like retching building up in the back of her throat, Her tornado of thoughts was interrupted when she noticed how her mentor landed again on the balcony and began to give orders to a couple of guards that had entered through the door, even so Twilight could not understand what they were saying, she was extremely dazed, it was not until the guards saluted with their hooves and left in a hurry that she managed to recover enough to understand that Celestia was talking to her.

"He...what?..." she asked absentmindedly while her eyes focused on those of her teacher.

"I asked you Twilight if you were okay...” repeated the alicorn as she approached her student and placed a helmet on her shoulder.

"I...I...I...I don't know, that was...horrible,” she finally said.

"I know, I know...” she began to say calmly "Even I was surprised, I didn't believe that a pony was capable of such barbarity, but don't worry Twilight, I assure you that everything will be..." she said the last with a smile. fine- she said the last with a strange slowness while she removed the helmet from her student's shoulder and started walking towards the door of the room, followed by Luna, which Twilight didn't notice when she finally woke up from her state of shock, both princesses vehemently headed for the exit leaving Twilight alone on the balcony. Just before walking out the door, making way for Luna, Celestia turned and looked warily at her student.

"Twilight, I'm sorry...” the purple alicorn raised her eyes in confusion in the direction of her teacher.

"I guess we'll have to postpone your coronation...” she finally said before walking out the door and closing it behind her, leaving Twilight alone and unable to process what she had just seen.