Yesterday Is Today

by Fon Shaolin

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Princess Luna
Length: 19701

Discord puts a plan into motion that changes Equestria forever.

Discord had one last trick up his sleeve to play before being locked up again: he's turned Equestria's timeless protector into its most dangerous threat. The kindhearted princess that ponies loved and adored is gone, replaced by an alicorn of iron and blood that forged Equestria out of the fires of pre-history.

Can Twilight Sparkle survive being the student of a pony who never had need of the magic of friendship or will she be forced to sit on the sidelines as Equestria irrevocably changes around her?

Published 2012-10-30 18:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-12-24 00:31:47 UTC

Chapter 1

Tonight was the best night of Twilight Sparkle’s young life, of that the little unicorn was doubly, triply, sure.

The party that had engulfed Canterlot after Discord’s defeat was still raging just outside of the castle. Princess Celestia had thrown open the gates, and ponies were everywhere on the castle grounds. Somepony had even enchanted the central fountain to gush super-sweet berry punch. Last Twilight had seen, Pinkie had commandeered enough space to dunk her whole head in and was happily gorging. “To make up for the fallen chocolate clouds!” she had gushed when Rainbow Dash had tried to pull her away.

Then again, Twilight couldn’t fault her friend’s decision to give into indulgence since she was technically doing the same thing.

“Are you certain you do not want to be with your friends, Twilight?” Celestia asked.

The little unicorn looked over at her teacher and smiled. “Oh, you know how I am with parties, Princess. I’d much rather learn about the spell you used to keep the Elements of Harmony locked up. Plenty of time to ‘party hard’ tomorrow.” That was only partly a lie, Twilight rationalized. Wanting to spend time with the spell’s caster was the same thing as being interested in the spell. Probably. Besides, she had just turned a god of chaos back into stone – she was due some downtime. Pinkie had her enchanted syrup fountains and Twilight had her princess.

Celestia’s tittering was music to Twilight’s ears – a soothing, familiar music that very few ponies ever heard. “Only you could think of examining a new spell when all of Canterlot has decided the week to be one of a nonstop festival.”

“I don’t get to spend as much time in Canterlot as I used to, Princess,” Twilight reminded.

“That is an excellent point, my faithful student. It has been quite some time since we had a little lesson like this, hasn’t it?”

Only one hundred thirty-seven days, Twilight thought as they stepped into the magnificent hall of stained glass that Celestia kept the Elements of Harmony in. Without a disaster looming over her head, Twilight took the time to really examine the windows. She had to admit that they were all very beautiful. Part of her wished she had spent more time outside of the castle library as a filly. Twilight hadn’t known about this room until the princess had shown it to her. With the full moon shining in through the multicolored glass, Twilight couldn’t deny that the hallway had a certain magic to it that was distinct from the six little gems resting in her saddlebags.

When the little open alcove came into view, Twilight had to admit that she felt a little excited. It represented a first for Twilight: Celestia’s spell had failed, and Discord had managed to get past it without anypony noticing. She was anxious to discover just how the draconequus had managed to do it.

Twilight reached out with her magic to check the lingering buzz of magic in the alcove. “Do you have any theories on how Discord managed to get past the spells, Princess?”

“Several, but to be truthful I doubt that Discord needed to do anything too complicated. He always did have more raw magical power.” Her smile turned impish when Twilight’s head quickly snapped over to her. “If I didn’t know my most faithful student better, I would say that you weren’t paying close attention to my explanation on how Luna and I defeated Discord. It took both of us and the Elements of Harmony to finally imprison him.”

“It doesn’t bother you to admit that?” Twilight wondered, thunderstruck.

Celestia’s reply was firm, though softly delivered. “One should never be too upset about a truth to deny it, Twilight Sparkle, even if it is only to oneself. How much damage would our battle have caused if I had confronted him with simple force? Since he is more powerful than I, would it have made any difference?”

Did that mean giving up when things got too difficult? Twilight couldn’t possibly imagine Princess Celestia ever surrendering to anything. Discord had been very powerful, yes, but the thought that he eclipsed the princess? That was something the young mare rejected vehemently.

The gravity of the conversation was broken by a melodic chuckle from the alicorn. “Forgive me, Twilight, but the look you get on your face when you disagree with something I have said has always tickled me.”

“I don’t—!”

“You do.” Celestia was once again firm, but there was more than just a pinch of good humor in her tone. “I would not expect you to agree with me all of the time. In fact, you would not be nearly as interesting a student as you are if you did.” The longest primary feathers of her wing brushed against Twilight as Celestia moved past. The smile tugging at her lips told the unicorn that her mentor wasn’t upset with her. “Just remember the lesson, and remember that coming straight at a problem is not the best path.”

The princess gave a telekinetic tug on the alcove door as Twilight digested her lesson. Belatedly, the smaller unicorn realized that Celestia had been working a complex spell while she had been talking. Twilight was always amazed at just how natural magic came to the princess; it was like watching a savant painter with brush and canvas. She could still feel the faint buzz of power in the air even if she had missed the actual casting.

Twilight knew what to do next. She floated the six Elements of Harmony out of her saddlebags and placed them all in the ornate box Celestia kept them in. She was glad to be rid of them, truthfully; carrying around the most powerful artifacts in all of Equestria would stress out anypony.

“Did you change the enchantment any?” Twilight asked as Celestia swept the alcove closed and leaned in to lock it with her horn. “Maybe you could bewitch the entire hallway? Or enchant the stained glass to alert the guards? Or…or…” Twilight’s train of thought trailed off as she watched Princess Celestia brace her hoof on the alcove door and pull.

Something was definitely wrong. Very rarely did Twilight see her mentor ever project anything but serenity. The alicorn was huffing and grunting and her hooves were clattering on the polished marble to give herself more purchase as she tried to tug herself away from the alcove.

The beginnings of snort escaped Twilight’s lips before she could clench them shut. Celestia’s visible eye instantly swiveled over to her student in what was possibly the most ineffectual glare Twilight had ever witnessed. Bent at the neck as she was, Celestia couldn’t use her considerable height to make it any more imposing. Her expression softened, and she let out a deep, calming breath before muttering, “Discord.”

Twilight hazarded a guess. “He spell-stuck the keyhole, didn’t he?”

“A most astute observation, Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia put both hooves on the door to pull with. After a futile moment, her visible eye searched out Twilight again. “The magic is preventing me from forcing my way out of this. Perhaps you could…?”

“But Princess, applying your lesson today it would seem that non-resistance would be the best course of action. I think I should go tell Princess Luna that you’ll be holding court here now.”

Celestia groaned. “You're learning bad habits from your pink friend.”

“Oh, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too bad, Princess,” Twilight said playfully. Her magic was already weaving itself into the alcove, probing for whatever foreign spell was there. This was hardly the first prank they had discovered in the castle since Discord had been imprisoned again, though Twilight had to admit it was one of the more inspired ones. “We could move your throne here so you wouldn’t have to stand all the time and maybe have a few tour groups come in during the day to keep you company.”

“Magic Kindergarten is still an option, my dear, faithful student.”

“That threat won’t work forever, Princess,” Twilight teased. She quickly picked up the magical threads that gave away Discord’s spell embedded in the stone of the alcove door itself. It was no wonder that the princess hadn’t noticed it when she was replacing the security enchantment.

There was something odd, though. Discord’s magic wasn’t just coalescing around Celestia’s horn – it was invading it. Curiously, Twilight increased the sensitivity of her scrying spell until she could see the tiny strings of power coursing through the door. It almost looked like a magical circuit. Magical circuits powered long-term spells with multiple effects that required extra power at set intervals. Whatever spell Discord had put on the door was using Celestia’s own power as a battery!

“Princess, you need to break out of that now!” Her horn flared as she pushed at the binding spell keeping the princess stuck. Already she could feel an incredibly magical buildup from inside the alcove. The panicked unicorn started pushing on the princess’s shoulder as she hammered away at Discord’s locking spell. “It’s pulling your power into the Elements of Harmony! He’s bewitched the Elements!” Twilight shrieked, finally grasping the entirety of the situation. She could feel the enormous siphon spell Discord had built into the circuit steadily increase as more and more power flowed into it. Already the magic being moved about boggled the unicorn’s mind, and the spell had only been active for a few moments!

Celestia’s wings created a swell of air as the princess struggled to get herself free. Twilight was nearly overwhelmed by the sudden magical power the princess brought to bear on the enchantments she had just replaced on the door. Twilight’s own magic was violently reinforced with the backing of the Sun itself. A truly staggering amount of power was being siphoned away from the Solar Princess as she fought to free herself, but enough was getting into the door to make it crack and buckle under the pair's onslaught.

A sudden quake rocked the castle so hard that Twilight lost her footing and clattered to the floor. Behind her, a large piece of stained glass shook loose from its fitting and shattered on the floor. Twilight yelped and rolled away, but the damage was done – her flank was weeping blood from a large cut.

Celestia’s wing stretched out and formed a canopy over the stunned unicorn’s head. “Twilight, it's dangerous here; you need to go! I can’t keep the spell contained!” The princess was still fighting with the door, but with her attention split the cracks were forming much slower.

Twilight managed to get back on her hooves amid the shaking, but she didn’t run. Her magic lanced back into the magical lock. “No! You have to get out of there! I can get you out of this!”

The wing that had been protecting her suddenly shifted like a snake, coiling on Twilight’s chest. With a mighty shove Twilight was sent spiraling back down the hallway away from the princess. “Go! Evacuate the castle!” Celestia's voice cowed even the terrific roar of the magical energies roaring in the hall.

“No, Princess!” It was too late. Twilight was thrown back again as the entire hallway disappeared in a ray of blinding light. She crashed into one of the ornate pieces of show armor that lined the main halls and bits of metal and rock pelted her body. She fell in a heap when the magical wind stopped holding her horizontal and saw nothing but a shimmering white wall where the stained glass hallway had been.

Twilight’s magic sparked to life of its own accord, and a clear bubble of magic formed around her crumpled body, protecting her from falling stones and the stray arcs of energy now cracking at the edge of the magical wall. Heedless of the danger, the unicorn charged headlong into the barrier only to be bounced back by her own shield.

Go! Evacuate the castle! Celestia’s order rattled Twilight’s skull more than being thrown around did. Her heart was ordering her to drop the protection spell and charge again while her brain was begging her to listen to her teacher. If she went into the magical maelstrom the cold, logical part of her mind was saying that she’d never make it out.

The purple bubble shattered with a pop as Twilight stopped her spell. A large stone grazed her head as she clamored back to her feet. Blood was starting to cloud her vision, but she could see well enough to start her limp toward the expanding edge of the wall. Just a little farther now and she’d be able to help Princess Celestia again. Just a bit farther, just a bit farther.

Right before her hoof could scratch the wall it stopped, and Twilight felt herself being pushed back again. She struggled mid-air and tried to put back up her barrier.

“Twilight Sparkle, stop!”

The swirl of magic left her horn as another pony came into view. It was Princess Luna. She was flanked by a dozen unicorn royal guards, all as wide-eyed and worried as their princess. The golden stallions were already rushing into place, horns flaring, as they tried to hold back the expanding wall of light. Despite their efforts, the magical burst was growing at a quickening rate; it was now well into the main hallway.

There was a look of exceeding concern on Luna’s face as she levitated the injured unicorn over. “What happened here? Where’s Celestia?” she demanded. The worry in her voice made Twilight’s desperation reach a fever pitch.

Twilight’s hoof pointed to the wall that the royal guards were still trying to stop. “Discord set a trap in the Element alcove. It…it did something to the Princess. She’s in there somewhere!”

Luna watched the guards and the way their barrier magic interacted with the growing wall. The Princess of the Night breathed in, and Twilight could feel a fresh stream of powerful magic lace the air with power. Suddenly, there was an almighty crack! and the guards were tossed away from the wall like rag dolls.

“What is this?” Luna whispered, distressed. She stared at the strange wall for another long moment before shaking her head. “We have to evacuate the castle. I cannot sense anything beyond that wall.”

Twilight started thrashing. “You can’t just leave her!” she shouted. Luna’s magic was still holding her fast, and the smothering magical presence of the alicorn was making it impossible to focus on a coherent spell. Still, Twilight kicked and wriggled in the invisible hold.

The princess ignored her. “You!” she snapped at the nearest guard. “Spread the word to all Canterlot divisions – everyone is to evacuate Canterlot Castle immediately! If the ball grows any larger, evacuate the entire city!”

Twilight watched the guards scramble with a rising panic. They weren’t trying to push back the wave anymore! “We can’t evacuate! We have to save Princess Celestia! We can’t—!”

The unicorn’s mouth opened to argue more just as Luna’s teleportation spell fired. Suddenly, they were hundreds of feet in the air, hovering well above even the tallest of Canterlot’s towers.

There was destruction everywhere. Twilight’s open mouth flopped listlessly as she watched the castle she had grown up in shake itself apart. Already half a dozen of the proud spires lay in ruins. One of the jutting towers, the one Twilight had climbed nightly to gaze at the stars upon as a filly, broke away from the castle and tumbled down the side of the mountain.

The cause of the destruction was plain. Rising up from the hallway where the pair had just been standing was a bright orb of light. It was pushing through centuries-old stone and mortar, cracking and breaking the entire castle as it grew in size. Everything Twilight had ever known was being destroyed in that instant, and she was unable to do anything. Ponies were running or flying away from the destruction and there was nothing she could do.

Her teacher was in the middle of that and there was nothing she could do.

A ring of black fire suddenly collapsed around the expanding orb. Luna, wreathed in a pitch-black darkness, twirled her head around and around, adding rope after rope of binding to her growing spell. Unlike Celestia’s magic, Luna’s was having an effect. It wasn’t being absorbed by the siphoning spell Twilight knew to be in the center of the wave.

She looked over at Luna. A dark pillar of magic fire was blazing on the alicorn’s horn, somehow blacker than the darkest patch of the sky and yet brighter than any moonlight at the same time. It was a living, breathing fire that flared with every labored breath the princess took. Luna dipped her head at the ever-expanding wave of light and the fire leapt from her horn. Long tendrils of dark flame wrapped around the orb and constricted tight. Remarkably, impossibly, the ethereal chains were holding back the destruction. Parts of the castle were still falling, but the ball wasn’t growing any larger.

“Do not simply gawk, Twilight Sparkle! You must pull the Elements of Harmony to you!” Luna hissed through clenched teeth. Her entire body was shaking and twitching and Twilight was starting to feel the magic levitating her start to slip. The Princess of the Night was throwing everything she had into preserving what was left of the castle.

The Elements! Surely they could stop this! Twilight closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds coming from below and the enormous power burning a few feet away. If she could only find the Element of Magic then she could possibly pull the entire Element box out of the wave.

Twilight’s senses ballooned out from her horn as she began probing through the chaos. A thousand different sources of power flickered around her, but none compared to the two raging infernos of magic that were Luna and the cataclysm. The dark alicorn’s magic was thick in the air as it pushed and contained the wave from all sides. What was down there was not, as Twilight had first thought, a mundane spell with a simple catalyst and effect – it was a magical engine that was feeding and growing on its own. The unicorn’s worst fears were confirmed when she realized that it was Celestia’s own power that made up the bulk of the power; that was also probably the reason Luna’s magic, Celestia’s magical opposite, was containing it so well.

Twilight knew there was something else feeding the spell, though. At the heart were the Elements of Harmony. She had felt them suck Celestia’s power right out of her in the stained glass hallway. The hope that Twilight had relied on a hunch that Discord’s spell had been specifically tailored for Celestia; if all went right, she could simply pluck the Elements out their alcove, breaking the magical circuit that was fueling the reaction.

A treasonous part of her brain whispered that Celestia would have already ended it herself if it were truly that simple.

That’s not true. The princess is too drained to move. Twilight had to believe that. Twilight was calmer than she had been minutes ago, and she wasn’t trying to force her way in. Instead, her magic looked for stress cracks in the ocean of magical threads destroying Canterlot. She knew from experience that it would be impossible to force her way into the reaction; instead, she felt around for small stresses in the spell that she could exploit. It was Celestia’s own magic that made the reaction work, after all. For Twilight, a unicorn that had worked magic with the princess for years, subtly breaking into one of her spells wasn’t that difficult.

Twilight filled with the warmth of her mentor as her magic finally found a suitable fracture. Behind the shell of the reaction, Twilight could feel all of the complexities of the spell as well as all of the powers within. The feel of Discord’s original spell were there, buried under the unbound fury of the sun, but something was horribly wrong. The familiar tingle of the Element of Magic was nowhere to be found. She didn’t understand. Celestia had put the Elements there!

Far above, Twilight’s body snapped back to life. “Princess, I can’t find them! They’re gone!”

Luna hadn’t fared well in the few moments Twilight had shifted focus. She was visibly struggling to maintain her spell. Her mane, which had been nearly translucent, was opaque and cloudy. Her horn glowed a deep red as well as it continued to feed wispy chains into the binding spell holding the magical reaction in check.

The princess frantically glanced over at Twilight then down at the castle. Suddenly, the crackles of magic stopped and Luna slumped forward, panting hard. The black chains that had been holding back the destruction of Canterlot faded into smoke and the magical reaction was allowed to blaze back to life.

There was a certain logic to it. Luna had held off the end long enough for most of the ponies to escape the castle grounds. Casualties wouldn’t be high now. It was safe for Luna to pull back.

Twilight’s magic roared again.

“It is too dangerous, Twilight Sparkle!” Luna shouted, but her warning fell on deaf ears. Twilight’s mind was already back down in the reaction’s center.

The knot of power was still there, and the Elements of Harmony were still missing. Twilight pushed away the impossibility of this and began searching for the one thing more important than the Elements: Princess Celestia. She was the pony that most needed her help now; the one pony that hadn’t had the chance to evacuate. The pony Twilight had left behind.

Twilight’s senses squeezed closer and closer to the heart of Discord’s spell. Here the magic was whirling like the heart of a storm. For a moment, Twilight was struck numb at the sheer complexity of what the God of Chaos had managed to create. Magical engines were still in their theoretical stage, but Discord’s was awe-inspiring in scope and power. If she hadn’t seen the infant “steps” of this engine come to life then Twilight knew she never would had made it this deep into the spell; the wisp of power that her consciousness was riding on would have been ripped apart by the magical maelstrom that erupted from the center to feed the reaction.

Going further still into the core was the most difficult thing Twilight Sparkle had ever done now that Luna had stopped holding the reaction back. Her magic was stretched hundreds of feet, winding around larger jets of magic that she still had to predict and compensate for when they shifted to feed the ever-expanding edge of the reaction. Twilight felt like her mind was fractured into dozens of pieces keeping her spell stable, and she was only creeping toward the center inch by inch. Celestia’s magic, the “fuel” for the engine, was lashing at her with greater intensity the closer she got to the knot.

And then Twilight was at the center. She had gotten there moments before with the help of Luna, but returned alone. The magics of the engine were revealed in their entirety to the unicorn. She could see Discord’s original spell, how it interacted with the door, how it accounted for magical stress and burnout…it was all there, right before Twilight’s mind.

Discord had accounted for everything – the spell was designed to burn up all of Celestia’s power, the Elements of Harmony, and as much of Equestria as possible until its power source, Princess Celestia herself, was used up.

Twilight turned away from the spell’s heart. The Elements of Harmony were already gone. What had happened to them Twilight didn’t know, but she couldn’t feel their power.

Something new was in their place, though.

It was where the Elements and her mentor had been before the destruction had started. Twilight reached out with her magic. She felt a roundish mass sitting on the ground, just beyond the heart of Discord’s spell. There was a familiarity about it, whatever it was. Her scrying spell couldn’t see physical things, only magical threads, but there was enough magic packed into the object that Twilight could clearly feel a rough round shape as if her hoofs were feeling it directly.

It was a shield! Celestia had put up a magical shield to protect herself! Twilight’s spell wrapped around the princess’s shield like a thin membrane, and she looked for a place she could get in. If Twilight could make contact then Celestia could tell her and Luna what to do.

Something reached out to Twilight. It felt like Celestia’s magic, but once it had a hold of the unicorn, the differences sharpened.

In one terrible moment, Twilight stared into the face of a sun she had never set eyes upon before. A horrible burning power raced up Twilight’s scrying spell all the way back up to her body. This was not the caring caress of her teacher’s magic; this was a magical lash that made Twilight twitch and scream in pain.

Princess Luna had never heard a scream like the one that tore its way from Twilight Sparkle's body when Discord's spell began to unravel. She held the thrashing unicorn tight in her magical embrace as the magical sphere of destruction was consumed from the inside out just before it could creep past the castle gates and into Canterlot proper. An immeasurable amount of damage had been prevented at the very last moment.

She looked over at her sister’s student. What had she done? What had Celestia done?

Luna stared at her terrified subjects standing on the edge of the destruction. “What am I going to do?” she whispered as she began floating down to the remains of her castle.

Chapter 2

“Lieutenant, I want an actual report, not a string of uneducated guesses! Get back out there!”

Shining Armor, Captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard, was living through the longest day of modern Equestrian history. The pegasus he had just told off was now flying back out into the hell that he, by all rights, should still be in. Having to sit on the sidelines and direct during a crisis was one of the biggest downsides to having his job.

He hadn’t been at the castle during the accident. Most of the guard had been given the night off by Celestia herself for services performed while Discord rampaged, and that was shaping up to be the only silver lining to this cloud. He had a hundred well-rested guardsmen to rely on.

The Guard had commandeered several of the closest private homes to the castle for triage centers and barracks. Shining Armor had personally asked his parents to open up their tower home, and it was now the temporary Guard headquarters. His familiarity with the area, and its proximity to the castle, made it easier to coordinate the growing rescue effort.

It also allowed him to keep a personal eye on the most important things in his life.

Shining Armor sighed and stepped further out onto the shaken skyway that linked most of the towers in the neighborhood. From here he could see the entire extent of the damage in its entirety – everything he had ever known was reduced to ash and ruin. The courtyard where he had used to parade in when he was just a lowly private; castle walls he had guarded on long, lonely nights; the magnificent hedge maze that was older than any living pony; Celestia’s throne room where he had been honored with a captaincy…it was all gone. Castle Canterlot had been stomped into the rock of the mountain as surely as grass underhoof. Skeletons of the once-great Canterlot spires were deathtraps to any pony that went into the ruins as the entire debris field was still settling.

“It certainly is a mess.” Luna was sitting at the edge of the walkway looking out over the mountain, but not in the direction of the ruined castle. Instead, she was watching a dark blot that had appeared on the horizon in the last thirty minutes. Shining Armor didn’t even want to imagine what it was and so far Luna hadn’t offered an explanation. When the stallion walked over to her she broke her gaze. “That was flippant, wasn’t it? Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Princess.” Shining Armor resisted the urge to look back into his old home. “Staying calm is the most important thing right now. Half the battle is fighting a general panic.”

Luna nodded. She went back to focusing on the dark blotch that was obscuring a few stars in the night sky. By morning everyone would notice it against the dawn sun that she would have to raise. “I’m cheating by sequestering my feelings from my waking mind. It’s useful now, but I will be of no use to anyone once the full shock of this night sets in. You will learn, in time, to do the same.” She glanced at the stallion again. “It is a mark of character that you are not showing your own emotions without my years of experience.”

“I couldn’t have done it without knowing Twilight was safe,” Shining Armor replied, slipping into a too-casual tone with his ruler. He frowned and straightened up. “Princess, I cannot thank you enough for bringing her here. When I saw the light and the magic, I…well, I wouldn’t be standing here if you hadn’t brought her.”

“Do not thank me yet, Captain. You will curse me in a few moments when I tell you what your sister must do after I leave.”

The sudden news shocked the commander. “You’re leaving? Princess, Equestria needs you! Now more than ever, the men need to see their ruler! Without Princess Celestia—”

“Celestia is precisely the reason I need to leave and the reason I need you to rouse your sister as quickly as possible,” Luna interrupted. She rose to her full height. Suddenly Shining Armor was reminded of who he had just admonished. “The presence of my sister kept many things stable, Commander. Without her constant touch, ancient spells are starting to unwind themselves. That,” Luna hissed, stretching her wingtip out at the darkening blot far from Canterlot, “is the most pressing thing for me to attend to.”

He had wanted to ask about that ever since one of his men had brought the news to him. However, between the rescue efforts, and his own distinct fear of adding to his worries, Shining Armor had put it out of his mind. “What is it, Princess? Some of the men have been asking and I didn’t know what to tell them.”

“Tartarus.”

Shining Armor blanched at the word. Every pony of every age knew of the ancient prison deep within the frozen mountains of the north. Every few years spectacular guards were rotated out to the prison. Shining Armor had known one or two from his days as a cadet, and the stories they told, the stories they were allowed to tell, scared him. From the monsters that were inside to the giant three-headed dog that helped guard the place, no pony wanted to willingly think about the prison. If something was going on there then he knew it’s where Princess Luna should be.

Yet, the princess wasn’t gone. She had sat on the skyway and watched for hours. That was probably even more frightening than a disaster at Tartarus.

He had an inkling of what it was, though. The stallion crept closer to his ruler so that none would overhear their conversation. “Princess Luna, what’s happened to Princess Celestia? When will she be coming back?”

The look Luna gave him was empty. Shining Armor had his answer. “You don’t know, do you? You’re playing catch-up just like the rest of us.”

“Not precisely,” Luna answered, her voice as low as Shining Armor’s. “I can still feel my sister’s power in this place. It’s stifling, even this far away from the center of the spell. Twilight Sparkle and Celestia did something to disrupt Discord’s trap. If they hadn’t, the spell would not have stopped with simply the castle. All of Canterlot would have been consumed.”

“Then, what you need Twilie to do…”

“Twilight Sparkle was the last pony to see Celestia. I need her to find my sister in the ruins and discover what it is that is keeping her from reestablishing her power over the sun, Tartarus, and other matters. Larger than Celestia at the moment are the things that she has helped pacify in the last thousand years. The prison is in real danger of being unleashed upon Canterlot if I do not directly intervene.”

This was so far over Shining Armor’s head that he couldn’t even see the light of day anymore – figuratively speaking. Luna had dropped out of the sky an hour ago with an unconscious Twilight, and now she wanted his sister to go out into a place Shining Armor wouldn’t even send grown stallions? But, if Twilight didn’t and something was seriously wrong with Princess Celestia then there was a chance that Tartarus would open.

“You can’t ask me to do that,” he said, pleading. "Twilie is special, but she’s only one pony. Asking her to mount some kind of rescue in her condition is too much. You know that she’d kill herself to find Celestia.”

Luna’s wings flicked out to their full span. “And I hate to ask this of her, but at the moment she is our best hope for success. What I can do, what you can do, what any of us can do pales in comparison to what your sister has done in the past and what the country needs her to do now. You must come to accept this, just as I have.”

Luna gave a mighty flap and leapt gracefully into the night sky, leaving a morose Shining Armor with nothing left do other than dread his baby sister's awakening and contemplate the ever-growing black blotch on the horizon.

Yesterday is Today: Chapter Two

“Do you think she’ll be awake soon?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m just a veterinarian. Ponies are, um, above my pay grade. A bit.”

The haze of sleep was thick about Twilight, but the voices of her two friends cut through to her.

“Oh, oh! Her ear just moved! Did you see it?”

“We shouldn’t push her, Rarity! Oh, we could do so much more harm to her like this.”

Twilight groaned as she roused herself enough open her eyes. Even with the burning pain of her sleep-accustomed sight, the little unicorn was glad to see two of her best friends at her bedside. “Hi girls,” Twilight groaned, though she was smiling. Even the pain in her body receded when the two wrapped her in a hug; the happiness Twilight felt at seeing them both was better than any rest.

“I was worried that you weren’t ever going to wake up,” Rarity sniffed. “When I first saw you just lying there…well, I didn’t know what I should do!”

Twilight just enjoyed the feeling of knowing two of her friends were alright for a moment. They helped her sit up in her bed after a moment and Fluttershy put a few pillows behind her back.

“Did the other girls get out of the castle?” Twilight asked, looking around. “Are they here?”

“Applejack broke a leg,” Fluttershy murmured. Her eyes were puffy and red; she’d been crying. “She’s at the hospital with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie. They’re not as bad off as Applejack, but everyone has to take it easy for a while.” Now that her attention was focused, Twilight could see nearly a dozen bandages all over Fluttershy’s back. Noticing the concern, Fluttershy explained: “The little animals were afraid when I flew them out of the castle garden.”

“Only Applejack is worse-off than you are, Darling,” Rarity added.

Twilight followed Rarity’s eyes. Her right haunch had a large bandage that covered her entire cutie mark on that side. She ran a hoof over the injury, remembering when the shattered stained glass had cut into her. At the time she hadn’t thought the injury to be that bad, but she could feel the sting just under the soft fabric. It was damp with blood that had seeped through.

Surprisingly, Fluttershy flapped over the bed and started peeling away the medical tape. Twilight had to grit her teeth when her skin pulled a bit with it. “I’m sorry; I wanted to wait until you woke up to change it.” The unicorn panted a few times when the bandage was completely off. It didn’t feel so bad, but it looked horrible. There was a massive gash going straight through the center of her star cutie mark.

“It’s going to scar, isn’t it?” Twilight wondered, although deep down she already knew the answer. Not even the best healing magic could fix something like that without leaving lingering proof of the injury.

Fluttershy let out a muted, “Sorry,” as she dabbed at the cut with antiseptic. Twilight didn’t know if the pegasus was apologizing for the scar, the sting of the medicine, or just in general. Either way, Twilight patted her friend on the hoof.

“It’s not your fault, Fluttershy. I know I couldn’t be in better hooves.” She did her best not to wince when her friend put a new bandage on; there was no reason to upset Fluttershy any more than she already was. “So, Doctor, am I cleared to walk? I really want to get started helping with the rescue effort!”

“Well, not exactly. You really shouldn’t even be awake in…in your condition. We just thought that you’d want to wake up to friendly faces. The guards can be so intimidating.”

Rarity huffed. “They can be down-right rude! Did you know they practically drafted myself and Fluttershy off the street? They had me sewing tents! Not that I minded, they were going to the homeless ponies that lived close to the castle, but still, they could have been a bit more considerate. Poor Fluttershy had to act as a nurse for hours! All of that blood!”

“I didn’t mind,” Fluttershy murmured as she settled down back beside Rarity. “Your brother asked so nicely that I couldn’t say no.”

That started Twilight. “You met Shining Armor?”

“He was the one that brought us to you, Darling! Why did you never say you had such a dashing older brother?” As she spoke, Rarity’s lips curled in an enthusiastic smile that Twilight wasn’t sure she liked. “He’s the only calm in this horrid storm, what with the princess’s condition and everything.”

Fluttershy gasped and turned on her friend. She wasn’t quite using the STARE, but it was enough to get the white unicorn to quickly hush. “We promised not to mention anything, Rarity!”

Twilight looked at the two with growing alarm. Promised? Promised what? To whom? Rarity’s eyes were wide and frightened. She had slipped up and Twilight recognized it.

She was in no mood to beat around the bush. “Rarity, what aren’t you telling me? What’s happened? Is…is Princess Celestia alright? She made it out of the spell. I saw her do it, Rarity! I saw her nullify the magic myself before...” Before what? Before she had passed out? Before she had let exhaustion and weakness prevent her from doing her duty?

“Twilight, please! It wasn’t your fault!” Rarity’s sudden shout broke thought Twilight’s panic attack. She had been mumbling aloud.

Twilight lunged and grabbed Rarity by the shoulders despite the lancing pain that raced through her haunch at the sudden movement.

“I need to know! I can’t just be sitting here, doing nothing, while Princess Celestia is hurt! Oh, I just knew that I had felt something wrong with her! Why didn’t I tell Princess Luna when I had the chance?” Intent on not wasting another second, the unicorn let go of her rattled friend and rolled out of bed. Her entire body was aching and Fluttershy was telling her to get back in bed with as much force as the pegasi could muster. She couldn’t, though. The pain was bringing her mind to one sharp focus – her teacher was still in trouble.

As she stumbled to the door, Twilight finally realized where she was. This was her old room. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized the dark purple wallpaper or the various knick-knacks littering the shelves even though it had been a year since she’d been a permanent tenant. Even her expensive orrery was still in plain view.

Twilight suddenly rounded on her friends. “My parents – are they here? Are they alright?” she asked.

“Mom and Dad are fine, Twilie. You’re the one that needs to be taken care of.”

That was a voice Twilight was more than happy to hear. She met her brother at her bedroom door with a relieved smile and a fierce hug. He was wearing his “work” armor, and it looked like he had been digging around in a mud puddle, but Twilight fine with clinging to his neck anyway.

“She got the princess’s condition out of me,” Rarity quietly admitted. “Sorry, Mr. Captain.”

“My sister could talk a worm out of an apple. You don’t need to feel bad,” Shining Armor said with a chuckle. “And I’ve already said you don’t have to keep calling me that. Twilight’s friends are my friends, and as far as I’m concerned all of you are already heroes three times over. Accolades like that make ranks seem rather perfunctory, don’t they?”

“Oh, if you insist, Shining Armor.”

Twilight stamped her hoof. “Stop that!” she hissed, giving her Rarity a warning look over her shoulder. The other unicorn demurred slightly, but she was still smiling. Twilight was going to have to nip this in the bud, but later. “Where’s Princess Celestia, Shining Armor?”

The good humor drained from the stallion’s face. “Twilight, I think you should lay back down and let me handle things. I mean, you just got done with Discord and you’re injured.” He poked the bandage over Twilight’s cutie mark hard enough to make her leg fold up on its own. “See? You need to rest. Let me do my job as Guard Captain.”

He started nudging the pained unicorn back toward the bed with his snout, but Twilight was having none of that. One bright magical flash later and she was on the other side of her exasperated brother.

“I’m not stopping you from doing your job,” Twilight argued. “I can help! Find Princess Luna and she’ll tell you to let me help!”

“Twilight, this isn’t negotiable. Canterlot is dangerous right now and—”

“—and nothing, Shining Armor! Rarity said that the princess is missing. I know that you have a complete mess out there right now. I was in the middle of it.” She snorted and gave her brother a flat look that invited him to bicker. “You want me to sit still while you and my friends are out there? You honestly think I can do that?”

Shining Armor grimaced. “It’s not the same thing. I’m a guard. I’m supposed to go into harm’s way.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “And I’m Princess Celestia’s student. Tell me what part of that means I’m supposed to hide under the covers in my room while there are ponies out there I could be helping. While I could be helping her, Shining Armor. Helping the princess.”

“I could keep an eye on her,” Rarity suddenly piped. She flashed a winning smile at the stallion and stepped up to Twilight, all the while ignoring the withering look said unicorn was turning on her. “Truthfully, I am just as worried as Twilight about how things are going with Princess Celestia. She is our princess was well, after all.”

Shining Armor looked between the two unicorns with a sour expression. He knew that his sister wasn’t going to back down, especially now that she had support. Luna’s prediction drifted back to him and his heart sank. In a way, his sister’s commitment made him proud, but a larger part of him was still terrified of her wandering out into the ruins, friend or no friend.

A splash of gold behind Twilight caught Shining Armor’s attention. “Sir, Lieutenant Mayweather is back from patrol,” a guard called out. “He’s requesting permission to report.”

Twilight watched her brother stew for a few moments before lowering the boom on him. “I’m leaving with or without your permission, Shining Armor. Now, do you want me out there running around without any information or do you want to help?” It was wrong to box him in like this. Twilight knew that, and she felt guilty, but she also knew that once her brother set his mind on something he wouldn’t let go – especially if he felt he was justified in his thinking.

“Get Mayweather,” Shining Armor finally groaned. The guard saluted and scurried away. “Twilight, listen to me. I’m only letting you do this because the situation is much more strained than anyone knows it is. What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room. Understand?”

“A-Are things really t-that bad?” Fluttershy asked, speaking up now that the tension between the siblings was somewhat resolved. “The magic…thing is gone, right?”

Twilight was surprised when Shining Armor turned to her for an answer as well. She had to scramble for an answer. “I think so. What happened in the Element Hall can’t happen again. It was caused by the Elements of Harmony interacting with Princess Celestia’s magic. She managed to stop the reaction somehow.” Twilight was confident now. She remembered the warmth she had felt after being thrown out of the reaction. “I saw her end it myself. A giant column of the princess’s magic nullified the entire thing.”

Shining Armor slowly nodded. “That’s what the court magisters thought as well. They weren’t aware of the Elements of Harmony, though.” His sounded disturbed, and Twilight felt much the same – she had no idea where the Elements were or why she hadn’t felt them when she’d gone into the reaction to help Celestia. .

“The problem right now, though, is Princess Celestia herself,” Shining Armor continued when Twilight didn't add anything. “She hasn’t been seen since she left with my sister after the medal ceremony. We don’t know where she is.”

Twilight was still for a moment, stunned, and then she exploded. She stormed over to her brother and pushed on his breastplate. “You don’t know where she is and you wanted me to just sit here? You didn’t tell me that she was missing!” Every shout was punctuated with a fresh shove on the stallion’s chest. “I can’t believe it! You’re in here worrying about me when Princess Celestia hasn’t even been found yet? What have you been doing this whole time?! Why hasn’t Princess Luna ordered you to go and find her!”

Shining Armor held his ground. Their simmering discontent with each other suddenly blazed back to life. “Princess Luna has left me in charge of the situation here while she tends to other important matters.” Before Twilight could properly wind up for another tirade, her brother plowed on. “We’ve been rescuing ponies that were caught on the castle grounds. Do you have any idea how many civilians were in the castle for the festival? Injured have filled every hospital in the city to overflowing and we’re still pulling out bodies. The last thing my men need is the princess’s star-struck student out there making problems in the middle of a disaster area.”

Just as Twilight was reaching her breaking point, a dark brown pegasus guard trotted into the room. Shining Armor let out a disgusted sigh and pushed around his sister. He didn’t bother with a salute. “Tell me you have something to report this time, Mayweather. Has there been any sign of Princess Celestia?”

“No, Sir. The magisters still haven’t gone any deeper into the ruins of the castle. The flight squads can’t get any closer, either. Magical burns have already put over a dozen into the infirmary. They've reported very strange...things in the ruins. We can't really investigate, either."

“That does it. No more low-altitude flyovers until the magisters can protect the guard. I can’t lose any more men when they could be helping comb the edge for survivors. I want you to take a squad and clear out the non-military traffic as well. No pony gets close to the ruins. Understood?”

The pegasus saluted. “Understood, Sir!” He was gone in a flourish of feathers moments after receiving his orders.

Twilight wasn’t going to linger either. She resolved not to look at her brother as she gathered up a few things from her old closet. An old saddlebag, her spare looking glass, and a few of Fluttershy’s extra bandages magically flew into the bags which then settled on her back.

“Come on, Rarity. We’re going.”

For a moment the white unicorn looked torn, but Twilight hobbling out the door made the decision for her. Twilight heard Rarity say her goodbyes to Fluttershy and, disturbingly, to her brother as well. Soon they were walking toward the house’s kitchen. Twilight didn’t see her parents anywhere and was glad for it; they didn’t need to see her and Shining Armor fight right now. They gathered water and food without speaking, but with all the noise the guards were making in the house it wouldn’t have made a difference if they wanted to talk or not.

Besides, Twilight felt rather talked-out after unloading on her brother. He had deserved it for being an overprotective knucklehead, but he was still her BBBFF. The comment about being “star-struck” had stung, though, if only because Twilight thought her brother wasn’t being serious enough about looking for the princess. Uncomfortable memories of the last Summer Sun Celebration forced their way through Twilight’s mind. Celestia hadn’t believed the threat back then – had laughed it off – but a disaster had happened. Why was it that sometimes Twilight felt like she was the only pony that worried for the princess’s safety, up to and including Celestia herself? Even Luna, the princess’s own sister, had gone off somewhere and for what? Important matters? What could possibly be more important than finding Princess Celestia?

The pair of unicorns weaved their way through the crowded entrance of Twilight’s old home and found the massive walkways just as cluttered with guards and other ponies. It was easy to see why: in the distance what was once Canterlot Castle was now a blank wound on the city’s skyline. Only a few buildings could rival the castle in terms of height – with it gone, the entire city looked wrong. Broken.

“Twilight, Dear, are you alright?” Rarity whispered. Twilight blinked and found that her eyes were wet. Her friend had herded her out of the main thoroughfare and off to the side of the walkway.

“I didn’t realize how much it would hurt,” Twilight answered. “I grew up here, Rarity. I love Ponyville, but Canterlot is my home. To see it like this…”

Rarity nodded. “Not even Discord did this to Canterlot.”

Twilight felt a cold hatred settle in her chest when she heard that name. “You’re wrong. He’s the one that put the spell on the Element chamber that started the explosion.” All of this was Discord’s fault. Every single brick that had been broken might as well have been by his own paws. He had even brought Celestia low. For that, Twilight despised him; because of his scheming, her mentor was in danger.

Twilight took a deep breath of air and let it sit in her lungs. It tasted like ash in her mouth, and she wanted to go on. “Sorry, I’m alright now. Let’s go, Rarity.”

“Perfectly fine. I can imagine how you feel,” Rarity said as they began moving again. “Why, I cannot imagine what I would be thinking if my boutique were ruined or Sweetie Belle was missing. You’re handling it better than I think I would be.”

The devastation was worse the closer to the ground the pair walked. Crowded skyways melded into even more crowded city streets where ponies of all classes, ages, and types were trying to move about. The Guard was doing its best to keep ponies from milling about, but there were always enough curious to make things difficult. For the longest time they simply followed the stream of gold-suited stallions toward the castle. Twilight had walked these same steps hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times over her life, but never had her hooves been as heavy as they were now. They only stopped once when Rarity wanted to point out which hospital Applejack was in. A momentary ease settled Twilight’s nerves; Canterlot General was the best hospital in the city. She knew that her friends would be well served there.

Twilight’s emotional reprieve did not last. Even at the brisk pace she was taking her hooves where hitting stones in the road that were familiar to her. Dips and bumps, potholes to be avoided – each one intoned how close she was to the castle. Even now, flat on the ground, the shadow of the great spires should have been cast on the road by the bright moon overhead. They weren’t, though, because Canterlot was broken. The air was thick with still-settling dust and the buildings strewn with rubble from castle.

She had made it to the unofficial line between what was the castle and what was the city. Buildings were only allowed so close to the moat. Rarity said something, some unimportant verbalization of what she felt, but words failed Twilight. It was one thing to not see the familiar towers in the cityscape or to watch something unfold from hundreds of feet in the air, but this was different. The sheer devastation before her, of everything Twilight had ever held dear, pulled fresh tears from the unicorn.

Twilight mentally counted off the steps in her head as she forced her legs to move over the drawbridge and into the ruin that was Canterlot Castle. They passed under one of collapsed gates and Twilight’s knowledge of the place collapsed. Nothing was as it should have been. Even without the stone walls, the purple unicorn thought she would be able to remember where everything was by the pattern of the stone underhoof. Now, though, she realized that was naive. Discord’s spell had done more than push down walls – it had wiped the castle clean from the rock of the mountain. Since Canterlot had been built up and over the side of the mountain, it seemed like there was a massive bowl that held all of the shattered bits of the castle.

However, it was a bowl filling with water from the mountain river and crackling with energy. Twilight had felt it minutes ago as they got closer to the castle, but this close the feeling was stifling. Rarity, Twilight could see, was sweating through her coat. The cloud that had settled over ruins wasn’t pure magic, since magic had no visible form when it wasn’t being channeled, but instead was steam.

“At least we don’t have to worry about the place flooding,” Twilight intoned. She had a mystery in front of her that was rapidly working itself out in her head. It was a distraction that the unicorn was grateful to have in order to get her emotions in check.

Rarity was panting in the artificial humidity and her mane was losing its trademark bounce. “What’s causing it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before, Twilight.”

Twilight had, though. She had grown familiar with this magic for over twelve years.

“It’s Celestia. This is what her magic feels like when she lets it sit,” she explained. “The heat is turning the water into steam because there’s so much of it saturating the place. Come on, we can ask the guards at the bottom what their progress is.”

They carefully picked their way down the ruined pathway that someone had cleared to get to the bottom of the bowl. Unlike the city, down here the only ponies around were wearing medical badges or were guards. There were ponies being carted off into town or being treated all over the clearing. More than one of them had wounds that made Twilight’s haunch seem like a triviality.

More than a few weren’t moving.

“Twilight? Twilight! Is that you?!”

The two unicorns heard the sudden shout and, thunderstruck, watched a tiny, light-purple dragon come running toward them from the wreckage.

Twilight hadn’t felt such relief since waking up in her bed. She trotted up to her assistant as quick as her legs could hobble. She scooped him up with her magic and twirled him around, looking him over for any kind of injuries.

Rarity was far less kind. “Spike! You promised us that you were staying with Applejack at the hospital!” She stormed up to the little dragon and poked him on the nose with her hoof. “You lied to me, Spike!”

“I didn’t! I did stay at the hospital, but…but…” He looked over his shoulder, back down the way he had come.

Twilight followed his gaze. The place where they were standing had been cleared of rubble, likely to serve as some kind of staging area for the wounded, but it tapered off near the end into a long, winding path. There was something back there – something powerful. “What were you doing here, Spike? What was so important that you left our friends?”

“They needed help finding Princess Celestia. Sol Shard came and got me from the hospital.” Twilight knew that name. Sol Shard was a magister in the court and one of Twilight’s old teachers at the princess’s school – though certainly far from her favorite. “I’ve been sending Princess Celestia letters so they can follow them to her.” His expression fell. “It hasn’t been going too good, though. We haven’t found her yet.”

Twilight let the dragon down. She wanted to be angry that he had been foolish enough to risk coming here. She wanted to be furious that Sol Shard had taken her assistant, who was little more than a child, into a war zone like this. The anger, though, was slipping away. Spike’s dragon magic was the best way to find the princess in this wreckage. If Spike had been there when she’d woken up, Twilight probably would have had him do the same thing.

He had been trying to help in his own way. “We’ll find her, Spike. It’s why I’m here. Can you show us where Sol Shard is now?” Twilight could feel Rarity’s disapproving glare on the back of her head, but she was desperate.

At least the bodies were behind them now. Spike led them down the narrow path into the ruins, past unicorn guards and volunteers who were furiously moving rubble and expanding the clearing while looking for survivors. Twilight watched them pull two ponies out of an upturned tower, both alive, before the walls of rock and rubble hid the clearing from view.

The atmosphere became heavier and heavier the further in they went. Celestia’s magic was something Twilight had always taken comfort in. Whenever the princess had cast a spell a feeling of warmth and calm accompanied the threads of magic that wove it. That wasn’t the case here. The heat of the sun was closing in on her, licking her skin with its overbearing fierceness.

“When I reached Celestia inside Discord’s spell, I felt this kind of pressure,” Twilight whispered. The memory was skittering through her brain and she let herself talk to give it an outlet. She wondered if Spike or Rarity felt so uncomfortable. So out of place. Something had claimed this ruin for its own and anyone who set foot here now was an intruder. “There was a magical backlash against my scrying spell and something didn’t like it. It hurt so much…”

Rarity flicked her ears forward. “Darling, are you saying that Princess Celestia hurt you on purpose? I admit my own magical shortcomings compared to you, but couldn’t it have been simple magical strain? You were completely drained when I first saw you.”

That was the easy explanation. Magical strain could bring on something like a severe migraine if you pushed past those limits. As eager as Twilight was to jump at the safe option, though, it didn’t sit right with her. This strange, warped magic that was now filling the air had been the same magic that had backlashed at her. She wouldn’t worry Rarity or Spike with that, though. Whatever was happening with the princess would be fixed just as soon as they found her.

Suddenly, a great flash of lightning arced through the sky. Twilight and Rarity both instinctively ducked their bodies, but Spike kept plodding along as if nothing had happened. As the rumbling of thunder faded, Twilight’s ears picked up faint sounds of chatter from just around the next bend in the narrow pass. Spike disappeared around the corner, and Twilight struggled to keep up.

When she rounded the corner she was met with an incredible sight: four unicorn magisters, denoted as such by their flowing robes, were pulling massive amounts of magic straight from the air. In motion, the magic lit up the steam-darkened ground enough that Twilight could make out each of their faces, stony in concentration, as they bent Celestia’s errant power into a single, massive thread of magic that fed directly into each of their horns.

“If you don’t want to be flash-fried, you better duck and cover!” the oldest of them, Sol Shard, shouted over the roar of the magic. Twilight, Rarity, and Spike leapt behind a piece of wall. Sol Shard broke his focus and jerked his head away from his fellow magisters a moment before a massive bolt of pure lightning exploded from the tip of his horn. It branched into the air like a glowing tree of fire, up through the steam cloud and into the sky.

Spike was the first to move out of cover. He walked up to the panting unicorn and yelled something into his ear that Twilight didn’t catch. A moment later Sol Shard tapped his fellows on the shoulder and the light faded as the immense siphon spell wound down.

Sol Shard was still the same stallion Twilight remembered. He walked over to the new arrivals with an even, slow gait that fit his advanced age. Twilight had thought him elderly when she first started at the princess’s school – now he was certifiably ancient. A smile from him was accented by several loose flaps of skin, and his spectacles were so sunken into his face that it seemed like they were a part of his body. Despite his age, though, his spell work remained superb. Even in retirement the princess had ensured he remained close to the court.

Twilight met the magister halfway and gave him a curt nod of respect. “Your work is as breathtaking as ever,” she greeted with a forced smile. Maybe he had mellowed out in the last year? There was always the chance.

“Of course it is. The day I cannot create a simple magical siphon is the day I let them put me in the ground,” Sol Shard responded, dashing Twilight’s hopes. Unlike most elderly ponies, Twilight suspected that Sol Shard had never come to terms with his age. He was brash and prickly, just as Princess Celestia had once told Twilight he’d been since his youth. “Having to carry these three,” he motioned to the other magisters, “on my back is another thing entirely. How can I be expected to magically drain this area when I have to maintain the spell, just about teach them how to breathe, and entertain any random fillies that bother me?” He gave Twilight and Rarity undisguised looks of annoyance as he spoke, which Twilight countered with an ever-tighter smile.

“We’re here to help find the princess, Sir,” Rarity said.

“You think you can do this? I’d be shocked if you could levitate a pebble.”

Twilight gaped at the insult. Sol Shard had been rude for as long as Twilight had known him, but to just verbally berate someone he’d never even met?

When she opened her mouth to tell the old codger off, though, Rarity stepped in front of her. The pale unicorn opened her saddlebag and pulled out a bottle of water and a small towel, which she floated over to Sol Shard. “I know I cannot help with the spell work, but I can help the casters, at least a trifling bit.”

Sol Shard looked at the items with deep suspicion. Amazingly, he plucked them out of Rarity’s magical grasp and downed half the bottle in a single hit. “It’s been hours since I’ve had a drink of anything. The guards are happy to use me for the spells, but then they forget that I’m up here.”

“Of course they do, Darling.” Rarity turned back to Twilight with an easy smile, ignoring the way her friend was gawking. “Twilight, could you be a dear and give some water to the other gentlemen? I’m sure they need a break as well.”

Summarily dismissed, Twilight skulked over to the other magisters to practically toss water bottles at them. What was Rarity doing? Wasn’t she mad at the old goat? But, no, she was over there talking to him, even going so far as cleaning his glasses with one of her nice handkerchiefs.

Gods, but her leg was hurting. Twilight shook her head and decided to let Rarity do whatever it was that she wanted. Right now Twilight had a bandage to change. She hobbled up to a large stone and braced herself against it so she could completely lift her leg. The old bandage was soaked through with blood. Twilight cast a glance around for Spike; he was with Rarity and Sol Shard, so he wouldn’t have to see her like this.

Her haunch was badly inflamed. Twilight didn’t have the same expertise with bandages as Fluttershy did, but she wiped away the oozing blood and re-wrapped her entire haunch with gauze and strips of cloth. Hopefully it would hold together until she found Princess Celestia.

It had to.

“Why are you still sitting on your flank, Sparkle? Tired from just taking a stroll down here?” Twilight hastily pulled back on her saddlebag before Sol Shard and Spike could see the worst of the bandages. Sol Shard was going back to the other magisters while Rarity and Spike plodded up to her.

Twilight didn’t let Rarity say anything first. “Why are you sucking up to him? He’s a…a…”

“A horrible, bitter, rude old boar of a stallion? Why yes, yes he is.”

Spike and Rarity shared a laugh while Twilight sputtered. “Then why were you being so nice to him?” she asked.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Because he deserves it, Twilight. He might be insufferable, but did you know he’s been draining the magical fallout down here for hours without resting? You realize that it was because of that we were able to find Applejack and Rainbow Dash, yes? They were trapped in the ruins for a good half hour until guards were able to dig them out.”

Of course they were. Twilight rubbed her forehead and groaned at her own stupidity. She had seen the ponies working at the edge of the ruins to get survivors out, and without Sol Shard and the rest draining away the worst of the magical excess going would be much slower.

“I’m an idiot,” Twilight muttered.

The white unicorn gave her friend a chastising look. “You most certainly are not, Twilight! Do not let me hear you disparage yourself like that! This is simply the most stressful night anyone could have imagined; tempers will run hot and you’ll overlook things in the heat of the moment, but you will never be an idiot.”

“This is why you came with me, wasn’t it?" Twilight realized. If it wasn't the worst possible time for it, she would have wrapped the other unicorn up in a hug. "To help with things like this?”

Rarity smiled innocently. “Well, you might have a habit of letting the small things sabotage you. I may not have your magical talent, Twilight, but there are things I can do to help lighten your load.” Rarity motioned for them to walk over to the magisters. “I’ve discussed it with Sol Shard and he agreed that finding the princess is the most important thing right now. He has an idea on how to find the princess that I think you might like.”

The four magisters had opened up a wider clearing by the time Twilight reached them. Sol Shard grunted when Twilight caught up with them and finished the rest of his water in a single swig. He looked to Rarity. “I still say this is a waste of our resources,” he said, “but your friend make a convincing argument, though I still think we should use a guard or one of these bumblers for it.”

“Rarity said you had an idea, Professor. What is it?”

Sol Shard snorted. “Oh, back to ‘professor’ now that you’re getting something you want?”

Twilight felt Rarity give her a subtle tap from behind and unclenched her teeth. “Finding Princess Celestia isn’t just what I want. It’s for the good of everyone,” she replied, as evenly as possible.

“Just because your personal desires intersect public ones doesn’t mean that—”

Rarity coughed. Loudly. “Do you not think that all of us would be better served by moving as briskly as possible? We can all argue later when Princess Celestia is back safe and sound.”

With a grunt, Sol Shard backed down. Twilight had never seen the old unicorn retreat from one of his tirades before. Just what had Rarity said to him?

“Fine, fine. Just make sure you listen well, Sparkle. You remember how to listen, right?” Before she could answer, Twilight found herself levitating over to the group of magisters. “We’re going to localize a magical repellant on you so that you can make it through the ruins without getting cooked. You follow the dragon’s letters to their source and bring Celestia back. Simple, right?”

“Why didn’t you do that in the first place if you could?” Twilight asked. She watched with growing trepidation as the other three magisters started lacing the air around her with magic. It was wrapping around her in thick threads, weaving and knitting before her eyes.

Sol Shard’s horn lit as well. Twilight yelped when she felt the tightly-packed magic tether itself to her horn. It was always unsettling for a unicorn to feel the magical touch of another, and Sol Shard had basically just pushed four different magical signatures into her horn. It meant that she was controlling the spell they had created around her, though.

She landed on her good legs when Sol Shard’s magic didn’t support her up any longer. The old unicorn looked even wearier than he had after releasing the magical siphon spell.

“Because,” he panted, “as much as it pains me to admit, you know Celestia’s magic better than any of us. You have to adjust the repellent spell yourself to match the magical density you’ll encounter as you go deeper into the castle ruins. It has to be a unicorn that can recognize Celestia’s magic instinctively and adjust on the move. Think you can do it?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder at Rarity and Spike. The little dragon was grinning at her and he already had out a quill and paper. There was worry in Rarity’s eyes, but also an eagerness that she hadn’t disguised completely. She wanted this nightmare to end as much as Twilight did.

“Absolutely, Professor,” Twilight said. She took a deep breath and stepped past the wiped magisters. “Spike! Take a letter to the princess.”

“What do you want me to write, Twilight?”

Twilight focused on the feel of Celestia’s magic in the air and adjusted the repellant spell. It buzzed, just above her skin, and suddenly all of the heat and pressure was gone. She could feel the slight night chill in the air and the gentle mist of the steam sifting through the ruins.

“Tell her that help is coming, Spike.”

She was gone into the ruins the second a cloud of glittering pink smoke zoomed over her head.

Chapter 3

Canterlot Castle, a glittering reminder of pony ingenuity, sprawled out before Twilight Sparkle like a shattered teacup. She had somehow imagined that the damage wasn’t, couldn’t, be as bad as it had seemed from the outside. Even when she and Rarity had breached the outskirts of the ruins, it hadn’t fully dawned on the unicorn that her childhood home could have been broken so badly so quickly. Naïve notions that the worst of the damage was saved for the outer bits, that somehow the core of the castle had remained intact, had persisted until she had seen the damage for herself.

Now, physically walking though the very bones of the once-mighty leviathan, Twilight realized how absurd her hopes had been. Every direction she turned presented a new panorama of carnage to digest. Her vile, traitorous mind was abusing its eidetic memory to recall where the walls, towers, doors, and archways fitted into the empty silhouettes that still stood tall in Twilight’s mind. Now they were nothing more than shattered stone and painful recollections.

Twilight had been immersed in the destruction for the last hour. She had memorized every square inch of the castle during her childhood. She knew every stone practically by heart, and every few steps her eyes would catch on some odd piece of fabric that once belonged to a tapestry she recognized, or maybe a distinctive column that she could instantly place. Each memory was a painful reminder of how she had failed to stop Discord’s spell. In the end it had been Celestia herself that had done the impossible and saved Canterlot – now it was up to Twilight to save her teacher, wherever she was.

The unicorn had not come unarmed, though. The comforting hum of Sol Shard’s spell buzzed just over the hair of her coat, pushing away the horrible heat that Twilight knew was clinging to the air around her. A great blanket of dust and steam covered the night sky. Infused with errant magic as it was, any kind of aerial journey was impossible. It was extremely dangerous to move through a dense pocket of magic – and infinitely more dangerous when that magic was Celestia’s. It permeated everything in the ruins, but it was readily mixing with the dense clouds to produce deadly results. Every few moments a fresh roll of thunder made the rock underhoof tremble. They were so frequent in the ruins that Twilight had already grown used to them, and she no longer jumped whenever a lightning bolt lit up the sky near her.

In fact, the lightning had its uses. Spike’s pink cloud of magic was still floating overhead, showing Twilight the way to her goal. The random strobes of light helped her pick it out against the dark clouds above. It hadn’t gotten out of sight yet, but Twilight knew the second it did she would be dead in the water.

Her path through the ruins was a loopy, winding one that had the unicorn scrambling over sheer walls of broken marble and leaping gaps between fallen balconies. More than once she had crawled through narrow gaps that blocked her view of the sky entirely, only to see the tiny splash of pink in the distance thanks to a bright splash of lightning. Twilight knew, though, that without her magical protection the lightning would not be nearly so tame. It could strike her just as easily as it could a random bit of metal sticking up out of the ruins.

For Twilight, the real fear was the cut on her haunch. Although it wasn’t steep, there was a noticeable slope to her path down into the crater center, and if she stepped on a wrong bit of stone that slipped her bad leg might not be strong enough to stop a fall. It would be a long, horrible tumble until she crashed into something solid enough to stop her momentum. With all the gnarled shards of marble and glass in the clutter, a fall would be a quick end to her rescue attempt. So long as she kept Spike’s letter in sight, her speed would have to be tempered with cautiousness despite her near-overwhelming desire to sprint.

Twilight adjusted her magical repellant spell as she swerved around a large piece of broken wall. Celestia’s unbound magic was getting thicker the closer to the bottom of the bowl Twilight traveled.

Visibility, though, was low. Twilight could barely see though all the dust hanging in the air. It was a constant battle to keep from tripping on some unseen rock or crack. The humidity, which Sol Shard’s spell certainly did not repel, stung her eyes and made them weep. Sweat was rolling off her back and burning all the little nicks and scrapes she’d gotten already.

A trickle of fear bubbled up from Twilight’s chest as she skirted the edge of a deep chasm that appeared in her path. They had started appearing more and more frequently as she descended. When a bolt of lightning rang overhead, Twilight caught a glimpse of the nasty-looking crystals lining the throat of the pit as far as she could see. No spell could protect her from those if she blithely stumbled into a sinkhole like that.

After traversing the crystal pit, a new bit of ruin came into view. Twilight let out a relieved breath; she recognized the architecture. This was old stone. She could tell it was from how well each brick had weathered the catastrophe; its toughness came from the cutting and quarrying techniques used. Times had been different back then, and the need for hardy stone was great. Most of the original castle was built from it, including the main keep that housed the throne room, royal apartments, and kitchens.

That meant that the Element Chamber was nearby. The long hall where she had last seen Celestia was on the far side of the throne room.

Glass shattered nearby, pulling Twilight from her calculations. It wasn’t too odd of a sound given how the ruins were still settling, but there was something else as well – the meaty slaps of something against stone. It almost sounded like flapping.

That was impossible, though. Shining Armor had declared the ruins off-limits to civilians and his guards. This deep in, Celestia’s magic would be stifling to anything unable to resist it, not to mention the chance of magical lightning. Nevertheless, Twilight heard another loud crash come from further in the ruins, followed by more flapping. There was no mistaking the sound of beating wings now that she was listening for it. She quickly looked skyward, but Spike’s letter was still lazily floating onward. It wasn’t stopping or descending.

Twilight fought down an irrational sense of panic as she started walking again. There had to be some trick to the noises; it was some kind of magical reaction or an odd bit of rubble settling in an unusual way. No one, not even the castle magisters, could have made it this far out. For something to be alive in these ruins would mean that they had more power than four of Canterlot’s greatest unicorns.

Still, Twilight saw no harm in making certain she made as little noise as possible as she walked. She drew closer to the strange sounds until a hazy structure appeared out of the steam – an archway, tall and proud, amidst the absolute destruction around it. Each voussoir was as large as Twilight’s head, and the keystone was bigger than a small pony; the rise was easily high enough to accommodate anything that would want to pass underneath. Through the archway, Twilight could only see a dark pit of blackness. No sky, no steam, and no end in sight.

Nothing in the rest of the ruins could compare to how normal this looked. However large the structure could be was hidden by a truly massive pile of rubble collapsed on top of it, but the archway was remarkably intact and unscathed. Twilight couldn’t place the unique stonework in her memory, but it looked like a very, very early addition to the castle. The cuts on the stone were rougher than anything Twilight had seen anywhere elsewhere.

She didn’t have time to study the stonework, though. Spike’s letter was already out of sight. The only way to go was forward.

Twilight tentatively stepped under the archway. She was scared – skittish, even – because she could not immediately recall where she had seen this kind of architecture before. It looked so out of place with dark stone and naked walls. Not at all what Canterlot Castle should have looked like.

Another mighty crash sounded from deeper within the ruin, and Twilight pressed desperately against the side of the hallway. There was no light save the very faint glow from her horn. The flapping she had heard from outside started again, followed by the sharp clap of glass shattering. She was still for a moment, wondering if something was going to rush her from the darkness, but the sounds didn’t grow nearer. Hesitantly, she started forward again.

It was a long hallway, and Twilight had to step slowly and softly to keep her hooves from clicking against the stone underfoot. No part of the castle had ever given Twilight the same unsettling feeling she was getting here. Deep down she knew that this was something no pony was meant to see; this place had survived the destruction not because of some happy accident, but because of some deliberate action from the builders, whoever they were.

A loud snarl ripped the air. It was a low, guttural sound that made Twilight’s stomach flip. She was so addled that she nearly crashed into a bend in the hallway. When she turned, she could see the end of her journey: an old, broken wooden door that had been ripped off its hinges. Something had scooped out the very stone it had been anchored in – something with claws massive and tough enough to physically dig into the wall.

Beyond the door was a massive circular room lined with dozens upon dozens of shelves and glass cases. Twilight didn’t dare add to the faint light that a few candelabraprovided. They were sitting on dusty tables that partially filled the large, open middle of the room.

Something moved past the candles. Twilight tracked the dark form as it stalked around the room. It was so large that the air it displaced made the candle flames dance and flicker as it went from one shelf to the next. Every few moments two enormous bat-like wings flapped, disturbing years of cobwebs and dust as the creature reared up to reach the tops of the tall shelves.

Twilight recognized what she was looking with a sudden, terrible clarity. She and her friends had faced a creature like this a year before, deep within the Everfree Forest. Truly, though, the manticore that Fluttershy had calmed was the runt of the litter compared to the specimen Twilight was confronted with here. This manticore easily stood over eight feet tall at the withers, easily dwarfing anything the unicorn had ever seen besides an ursa minor or a dragon. Even Celestia would have to look upwards to meet its eyes. Swinging behind the beast was its wicked scorpion tail. It was swishing back and forth in agitation.

As it searched the shelves, the manticore continuously growled and snarled. Some instinctual trigger inside Twilight kept her crouched on the floor like a fawn as the predator shifted around the room, watching and waiting to run if the beast caught wind of its audience. Luckily for Twilight, it seemed much more interested on its roughshod frisking of what she could now identify as bookshelves. Each one was filled to the brim with books, scrolls, and loose papers. More than a few had simply been dumped on the floor, seemingly not containing what the manticore was hunting for.

Suddenly the lion-like creature roared loud and deep. Twilight’s heart stopped as the its two massive paws gripped either side of a bookshelf it had been ransacking and pulled it apart at the middle like a sheet of cheap paper. Its tail whipped out and encircled one of the falling books. Twilight couldn’t see anything about the tome from so far away, but it seemed to please the manticore. It plodded over to one of the tables and, with a gentleness that belied the power it possessed, set the book down under near a candelabrum. Due to the close light, Twilight could see more of the manticore’s features: its lion face was wide and chiseled; there was a clear jaw that hung low under the enormous eyes of the monster; two giant fangs, each nearly as long as one of Twilight’s front legs, jutted up until they lingered just under his cat-like snout; a white mane peppered with grey framed his feral face and nearly hid the two swiveling ears that stood straight atop his head. It was almost funny how such a fearsome face scrunched up as the manticore leafed through a simple book, but he was the model of perfect concentration.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Twilight could see another door on the far side of the room. She knew that time was running short if she wanted to catch Spike’s letter again, but if she stepped into the room the manticore would notice her immediately since the table he had picked was directly facing the library entrance.

Just as Twilight was about to give up and slink back the way she had come, the manticore pulled away from the book and lumbered over to one of the glass cases that stood between the bookshelves. The one he had picked looked fairly large, but she couldn’t make out what was in it from where she sat. It meant that the beast’s back was turned on her now, though.

This was her chance – her one chance – to catch back up to Spike’s magical lifeline. She knew that the manticore wouldn’t be distracted forever. She had to go now.

Twilight warily kept her eyes on the hulking form of the manticore as she skirted the far edge of the room. The library was larger than Ponyville’s center pavilion, and the tables and darkness provided enough camouflage for the dark purple unicorn that she felt safe enough so long as the monster was focused somewhere else.

That book, though, needled Twilight relentlessly. What book could be important enough to intrigue a manticore? For that matter, why was a manticore in Canterlot in the first place? Clearly it had been searching, was still searching, for something in this strange underground library that Twilight had never before seen or even heard about. How had it known it was here? What was it looking for now? Without realizing it, Twilight had moved away from the wall midway from her goal. She was only a few dozen feet away from the table where the manticore’s prize was resting.

Her eyes went back to the manticore. He had smashed through the glass case and was sifting through whatever was inside. It was now or never.

Twilight crept closer without provoking a reaction. When she was close enough, she reached out with her magic and seized the dark leather-bound book. It zipped into her saddlebag, and the unicorn was back to moving across the room. On the other side, the manticore was still rummaging. Twilight thought she saw the glint of polished steel, but it was too dark to see exactly what the beast was recovering. Twilight knew she wanted to be gone before he was done, though.

The far door was shut, but it pushed open without much noise and Twilight slipped out. Once directly out of sight, she broke out into a gallop and thundered down the new hallway. A harsh trumpet of a roar sounded behind her and Twilight knew the game was up. She passed under the opposite archway just as the thick wooden door to the library exploded in a cloud of splinters. Twilight was already in the gnarled ruins when the manticore charged out of the entryway. His wings unfurled and the enormous beast took wing. Even in the darkness under the lingering steam cloud Twilight didn’t feel safe.

She was not. The manticore bellowed, and the sound drowned anything else in the ruins. Twilight kicked her back legs and leapt just as the stone she had been galloping on felt the crack of the manticore’s scorpion tail. The lump on the end was wide as wagon wheel, but the foot-long stinger crowning it was what had Twilight running scared.

It was terrifying how agile the manticore was proving in the air. It twirled and twisted through the ruined spires of stone that dotted the landscape like something half as large and twice as nimble. Nowhere Twilight ran seemed too narrow or difficult for either the wicked tail or massive paws of the monster. On one of the beast’s closer swoops, Twilight realized just what it had been distracted with in the library: where there had been copper-colored fur was now gleaming with steel plate and ring. Somehow the manticore had found an entire suit of armor that seemed to be tailor-made for its body. Even its weaker hind legs were armored.

There was no point in holding back now. It was either risk being overwhelmed by Celestia’s magic or eaten by the manticore. The book, the precious book that had started all this, was obviously too important to risk. That the strangely-intelligent manticore wanted it was enough of an incentive for Twilight to dig her hooves in.

Magic pulsed through her body as she released her hold over Sol Shard’s repulsion spell. She gathered the threads of that spell and appropriating them to her own use, focusing and sharpening the weave of power until it focused at the tip of her horn. When the manticore swooped in again, Twilight aimed at the center of the beast’s chest and fired the strengthened bolt of magic. The aim was true and her tormenter let out a pained bellow that shook the air.

The simple self-defense spell was never designed for combat, but buffed as it was it should have swatted the hulking creature from the sky. The manticore did stop, but to Twilight’s horror it did little more than that. White runes blazed on the thick breastplate of the beast, and the ray of reddish magic parted like water around a rock. It had been the most potent spell Twilight could cast, and all it had managed to do was slow the beast as its armor turned aside the spell’s effect.

Sensing weakness, the manticore gave one tremendous flap and dived again. This time he was too close for Twilight to dodge and the tip of the monster’s wing caught her on the side. She was sent flying, tumbling head over haunch in the air until she crashed to the ground half a dozen feet away. Her entire body felt numb from the impact, but a searing pain immediately blossomed in her ribs where the wing had hit.

There was another trumpet from the manticore as it rounded on Twilight again. The pony struggled to her feet; she knew she couldn’t try to run again. The air around her seemed to shimmer as she pulled every ounce of magic into one enormous thread, crudely threading it again into the self-defense spell the princess had taught her. If she could just stop the creature again she could get her wind back and run.

She had to stop it. She would stop it. She had to keep going.

It only took the span of a single breath, but to Twilight it seemed like an eternity for the spell to form. When it fired the manticore was close enough that she could count how many whiskers adorned its face. It hit the beast full in the face, but again the runic armor it wore cut through the spell. Twilight was holding a steady stream of magic, but the beast was powering forward through the current. It was so close she could smell the beast’s rancid breath.

The air cracked as a bolt of magical lightning split the two apart. Twilight rolled on the ground like a rag doll; she couldn’t hear anything but a high-pitched whine in her ears. She was coherent enough to seek out the manticore, though. It didn’t look nearly as dazed as Twilight felt.

Its armor was smoking, though. The runes on the surface of the metal were glowing red-hot. Twilight wondered if it had taken the brunt of the lightning. Ironically, it looked like the manticore’s own armor had saved her by absorbing the rampaging solar magic. Twilight wanted to laugh, but the pain in her side was preventing her from even doing that. What were the odds?

And then something changed in the air. The horrid humidity that had been clinging to Twilight vanished, taking all the heat with it. Instead of steam and water, the air was now saturated with magic.

Controlled magic.

The manticore noticed as well. Its slow stalk forward transformed into a leap, claws outstretched for the quick kill. Twilight could see a feral desperation in the beast’s slitted yellow eyes as it arched toward her.

“Thou hast never understood thine own limits, Constantis.”

Twilight watched as a transparent skin of yellow energy condensed at the tip of her nose and rose from the ground to the sky above. He roared as his claws were stopped by the magical barrier, challenging the strange magic with tooth, claw, and stinger. Great sparks of hot nail and chitin rained down on the shattered ground as his claws and skin whittled off as they pounded at the wall to get to Twilight.

A bolt of pure lightning took the manticore in the side. His powerful armor, which had absorbed all of Twilight’s efforts, provided the beast with little defense against the sudden attack. He hit a nearby wall with such force that the rock split apart and rained down in a shower of loose rock. Another swift bolt of white-hot magic lanced into the rubble and turned it into a smoldering inferno of fire and smoke. Twilight saw the manticore in the middle of the flames flailing in pain, and its roars reached even her still-ringing ears.

Something sailed to the ground in front of the firestorm on wide wings. It looked to Twilight like a mare, though taller and leaner than most. They had a pearl-colored coat that shimmered in the firelight and a mane of dancing flames. The wild hair whipped and flickered in a massive column of fire that out-shown even the pyre they had lit.

A ball of fire launched itself out of the inferno. The newcomer danced away as the burning manticore sent swipe after furious swipe at them. Each time the massive paw would descend, the pale pony would dodge by the thinnest of margins and the most deliberate of actions. It looked to Twilight’s eye like a carefully planned dance, only the great beast was not party to the mare’s steps. He trumpeted each time his claws met anything other than tender flesh, and bellowed whenever a polished cream-colored back hoof would catch him in the head, paw, or foot where his armor did not reach.

Twilight yelled out a warning when the manticore whipped its wing out. The same wing that had laid her low, though, was nothing but another clunky appendage to the limber mare. She bent at the knees, impossibly quick, and chambered a kick that missed the precious appendage by a hair’s breath. Even though it was a miss, the mare was already twisting her body back around. As all four of hooves hit the ground, she launched herself upwards and into the manticore’s guard with a mighty flap of her own wings. Something on her head glowed with a blinding light that forced Twilight to clench her eyes shut, but the manticore roared.

It was a terrible sound, though not for its ferocity. The trumpet was agonizing, and Twilight could see why when she opened her eyes again – the monster was clutching at a weeping hole in its armor close to the shoulder. Its close brush with death seemed to take all the fight out of the beast. The manticore lashed out again with its claws, but not trying to land hits. The sweeping arcs were forcing its opponent back while it gained the distance needed to take flight.

Twilight heard the whine of a large electrical charge come from the mare. Atop the pearl pony’s head sat a horn, slender and red with manticore blood. Light gathered at the tip until a small ball hovered like a star above it.

The manticore was already a speck in the darkness; surely she couldn’t hit him from—

The spell wailed in the darkness like a kettle left to boil too long. Twilight could actually see the magic reshaping itself, stretching into a thin lance of a bolt that sailed after the flying monster. After a long arching flight, the night sky flashed bright crimson and thunder rolled through the air. Twilight’s eyes actually burned from the flicker.

“Is he still…alive?” she whispered.

The winged unicorn was still staring into the sky. “Constantis was always supremely nimble. We would be surprised if he was not.” With a snort, the tall mare turned to the unicorn. Her horn flashed and the barrier which had saved Twilight’s disappeared.

Light from the fire still bathed the area and Twilight gasped when her savior came into view. Flourishes she had initially thought were tricks of the light in the heat of battle were now evident. The pony was tall for a mare. Twilight guessed she would only just beat Applejack’s brother in height, but most of her side girth came from the two wings neatly folded there. Taught muscles in her shoulders weaved into a barreled chest which would leave most stallions envious, and it would have certainly looked out of place on any normal pony. The way this alicorn held herself, though, made it fit perfectly.

Twilight was reminded of the mares she had seen in the popular Canterlot fashion magazines her mother used to read. Slender legs, tall, trim, and possessing a certain physical aesthetic that was instantly recognizable as being different from the usual stock that made them stand out. Her long mane – a pure, unsullied shade of bright turquoise – only added to the otherworldly aura the pony projected. The way it licked at the air like a fire running down the back of her neck was mesmerizing.

“Thou surprisest Us,” she said, breaking Twilight’s examination. Her voice was strong and refined. “We did not expect to feel such magical power. Few are equipped to face General Constantis, but thou appliedst thyself admirably.”

Twilight was too distracted to blush. “I was just trying to get away with my head still on my shoulders.”

The alicorn considered that. “Thou wert successful then, though We believe thy flank and chest suffered for it.”

“The flank was already hurt,” Twilight said. She could breathe, which was all she needed at the moment. The worrisome scratch in her chest would have to wait. She rose on shaky-but-workable legs. It hurt more than it had coming into the ruins, but she would make do. “I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“The beast’s own ignorance deserves thy gratitude. If not for his foolish display of power so close to Us, We should not have seen thy struggle.” Her smile turned patronizing. “‘Twas pure madness to challenge thee so near the battlefield where We finally broke his master.”

What could possibly be that monster’s master? The thought of something even worse lurking around than that manticore left Twilight with a strong sense of unease. What could be sufficiently horrible to command that creature? She thought of the book resting in her saddlebag; what if the beast wasn’t searching just for himself? Twilight was suddenly relieved she had taken a chance and snatched it from him.

There was a more immediate problem than worrying about other things lurking out in the ruins, though.

“Are we safe from the lightning?” Twilight asked, looking fearfully at the low-hanging clouds. “I had a spell that repelled the magic in the air, but I had to let it go when the manticore came after me.”

“Thou doubtest Our control? It is a simple thing to keep the magic of this battlefield placid if we wish it. Was not the demonstration with Constantis enough?”

The alicorn’s confidence was infectious; she sounded so sure of herself that Twilight’s concern was ebbing. It was true that since the tall mare had showed up the oppressive heat of Celestia’s magic had stopped being quite so overwhelming.

She decided to trust her savior on the matter of Celestia’s errant magic for the moment. Besides, right now there were much larger apples to buck.

“Can you make it so I can keep going, then?” Twilight asked. She had hope, now, that perhaps there was still a way to salvage this situation.

The tall mare considered her for a moment. Her eyes flicked past the wounds and dirt marring Twilight’s coat. “Thou soundest as if your journey is one of great import,” she dodged, settling on a neutral non-committal. “Tell us – what drives thee so? Many tidings have left Us wondering. Mayhap thou couldst provide illumination?”

It took more than a moment for Twilight to digest the alicorn’s archaic grammar, but she realized the mare was asking for information. Did that mean she came didn’t know about any of this yet? Had some distant relative of Celestia or Luna really flown to Canterlot, only to find it reduced to this and both their relatives missing? How do you tell someone something like that?

“I…I don’t want to be the one to break it to you, but there’s something you should know. Discord destroyed the castle. He almost destroyed everything. The princess is missing because of that, but I know she’s here somewhere. I came here to find her.”

The alicorn seemed troubled. “We were not aware that Discord had ruined a castle.” Her gaze became speculative as it swept the broken landscape. “Luna’s extended absence is puzzling to Us as well. Has thy search reaped results?”

Twilight was relieved that the alicorn was taking things in-stride. She could only imagine how Blueblood or another member of the extended royal family would have acted. Her information was off, though. “No, but I’m not looking for Luna. Shining Armor knows where she is.” Or, at least, Twilight hoped that was the case. Finding one princess was trouble enough.

“Thou said it was a princess thy were searching for in this place,” the larger mare stated. “If not Luna, then which?”

“Princess Celestia. She’s been missing since the disaster.”

Something clicked in the alicorn’s mind; Twilight could see it on her face. “Then it was thee who sent these scrolls to Us,” she said. Her horn lit with a golden aura and several letters flew out of the nearby ruins. They piled in a neat stack at Twilight’s feet. “We have been bombarded with them for hours, though there was no information on the sender. Thou shouldst know that it is impossible to reply with this magic without a magical signature.”

Twilight wasn’t listening. In fact, she had tuned out everything when her eyes caught on the letters. Each had been opened already and the topmost in the pile gently glided up so Twilight could read it.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Help is coming.

“This is impossible,” Twilight muttered. Two lines scrawled by a hand only slightly-less familiar than that of her teacher. There was absolutely no mistaking Spike’s unique penmanship, just as there was no mistaking Princess Celestia. This alicorn was not the Sovereign of the Sun.

“The tone was getting rather frantic near the end and We feared some calamity. Tell Us, has Luna yet taken command of the army?” The not-Celestia was prattling on about crazy, silly things. Army? What army? Why should Luna take control of anything? Luna wasn’t even in Canterlot!

Twilight locked eyes with the imposter to say just that, but the eyes that stared back...she hadn’t seen them before, when they had been talking after the manticore had been driven off; now the two deep purple irises were staring right back and the unicorn felt something tug at her mind. This is Celestia, it said. Everything else about the alicorn had changed except her eyes. They were the same kind eyes she had seen at her entrance examination; the eyes that had watched with pride as she cast her first real spell; the eyes that had looked so wistful when she had said her goodbyes before moving to Ponyville a year ago.

Now they looked at her without the faintest hint of recognition.

It was too much for the unicorn to take at once. Her mouth flapped uselessly as the princess continued to pepper her with questions she couldn’t understand. Celestia wanted to know where the army was stationed; the casualty numbers; what Luna, Twilight’s apparent commander, thought they should do with the stone draconequus.

Finally, the unicorn threw up her forelegs. “Please stop!” she shouted. “Just…stop. How is this possible? Why did you change so much? How could you not remember me?”

Celestia gave her a flat look. “We do remember thee – We remember thee attempting to touch our mind.” She waved a hoof airily. “We wished to give thee the benefit of the doubt, to see if thou hadst any ill-intent. Thou mark thyself as a follower of Luna’s, but now it seems that thou art attempting to withhold information.”

“I’m not!” Twilight insisted. “And I was trying to help you! You were in the middle of Discord’s spell; I couldn’t just leave you!”

One of the mare’s hooves stomped the ground impatiently. “And what authority allows thee to approach thy monarch so?” Celestia demanded. “In the heat of battle, Our mind is focused. To disturb that is to tempt forces beyond thy comprehension.”

Was the alicorn admitting an accident or simply explaining how severe Twilight’s mistake had been? “I’m your student,” Twilight tried, not honestly wanting to know that answer. “I had to try and help you.”

The alicorn’s nose wrinkled. “We do not have a student.” It hurt to hear that. After all the things this unfamiliar Celestia had said, that single statement hurt the most. She crumpled – mentally and physically – sagging back to the ground with a hitched intake of breath.

The old Celestia, Twilight’s Celestia, would have wrapped the unicorn in a soft wing, telling her that everything would work out in the end. Celestia would comfort her even if Twilight was just another faceless pony in her kingdom. She would mean it, too. The princess wouldn’t rest until whatever problem it was had vanished along with her subject’s worries.

There was no such comfort from this alicorn. Her familiar eyes held no warmth or comfort in their gaze. “Stand,” she ordered. It wasn’t the motherly tone Twilight was used to. Celestia’s voice snapped at her like a growling, scratchy whip that demanded immediate action. “We did not say that something was not amiss. Many things are perplexing at the moment, and We still wish for thee to explain.”

“I think I’ve got more questions than you do,” Twilight sighed, struggling to get to her feet. Celestia didn’t offer to help. “I’ll try to answer everything, but I have to ask – do you know what Discord is able to do to ponies? He can get into their minds and—”

“—and change the way they act. Yes, We are aware of that magic. It is strange that thou art as well.” Celestia was quiet for a moment, then said, “Thou wilt inform us of thy dealings with Discord. Start at the beginning and recount everything up until this very moment.”

Twilight did. As long as she talked, she wouldn’t have to hear Celestia say those horrible things anymore. The words spilled out of her in waves, flowing furiously at first as she tried to explain everything at once about how Discord had first shown himself, and then softly ebbing at her feelings of hopelessness and despair upon seeing her friends being emotionally mangled had to be voiced. She left out nothing now that Celestia was willing to listen. Between the two of them, Twilight was certain that they’d find the answer both were looking for. And fix you, she thought.

Celestia said little while Twilight spoke, only interrupting to ask that a part be repeated or described in greater detail. Small things like what scenes the castle’s stained glass recounted or the exact feeling Twilight had when touching Discord’s spell. She was silent for a long moment after Twilight finished, sitting with her eyes closed and a look of mild disquiet on her face.

She finally let out a deep sigh through her nose. “What hast thou done, Discord?” The name of the draconequus slipped past her lips like an oath. Twilight had never heard her teacher say something with such venom before.

“Does that mean you believe me?” Twilight softly asked, daring to let hope creep back into her voice.

“It means We are willing to consider certain things We normally attribute to fools and charlatans.”

“Then, you’ve got to me put this right! Canterlot needs you! It’s past time for the sun to come up and there are still ponies trapped in these ruins!”

Celestia’s brow scrunched. “The sun should be up? Even Our internal time-keeping is off?” She had whispered the words to herself, but Twilight had heard them. The alicorn caught Twilight’s eyes again. This time they were searching for something. It was all the unicorn could do to keep from flinching away. The princess was far more obvious with her attention now. Twilight was unused to being studied.

Finally, the alicorn’s horn began to glow a bright gold. “Stay close to Us,” she said, breaking their mutual gaze by letting her eyes slide closed.

Twilight scampered over to Celestia’s side slowly at first, but then closed the distance in a few frightened skips when a bright beam lit the unnatural night sky. The thick blanket of steam that smothered the ruins gathered around the pillar of light emanating from Celestia’s horn, swirling around the column like water circling a bathtub drain.

It was breathtaking spell work. If Twilight had any doubts as to the alicorn’s true identity, they were put to rest by the feeling of Celestia’s magic pouring from the mare. She hadn’t felt it at first because of all the ambient magic in the air, but right now, this close to her, all Twilight could comprehend was the warm sensation of the sun, rough as it felt being commanded by this unfamiliar princess.

That wrongness wouldn’t keep Twilight from watching the alicorn with admiration. As Celestia tamed the magic, the humidity and heat in the air gradually receded. The air became cool as a normal Canterlot night. Twilight took in a deep, pleasant breath for the first time in a long time.

Celestia was becoming a living magical focus. All of the latent magic that had been hanging in the air was being bound to the long string of magic the alicorn was sending into the sky. That was the principle behind the simplest unicorn spells, like levitation, but Celestia’s casting was an entire order of magnitude higher. It blew through the ruins like a storm, ripping the settled magic from every nook and cranny it was hiding in and sending it into the sky to diffuse harmlessly in the atmosphere.

“Why didn’t you do this before?” Twilight asked, watching the spectacular lightshow created by Celestia’s magic. It was rippling high in the sky in glowing ribbons of magic. “We’ve been trying to get to you for hours.”

The flow of magic from Celestia’s horn tapered off. She looked drained and was panting slightly. Her voice was firm, though. “That is precisely why We did not. Constantis was hassle enough for Us; if the bulk of Discord’s army had arrived, it is possibly they would have recaptured their master.”

“But the letters said we were looking for you,” Twilight countered.

“Letters that We could not answer, written in writing We did not recognize, and filled with names that meant nothing to Us.” Celestia flared her wings out to their fullest, stretching. They reminded Twilight of Gilda’s wings, slim, sleek, and lined with grand primaries. “However, thy words have weight. Something is wrong here, Twilight Sparkle. Something important is missing. Something We are certain We had during our battle with the draconequus.”

Twilight understood at once. “The Elements,” she whispered.

Celestia shook her head. “Their absence can be explained; the circumstances would be troubling, but not impossible. We speak of the Cycle. The sun is not moving. Nothing is moving.” The complete confusion in the monarch’s voice frightened Twilight more than any manticore could. “Our spell that governs the automatic movement of the sun is gone. Someone has wiped it away from Our sun. We were calling out to it when thy magic reached Our senses.”

That simple admission was the most Twilight had ever heard from her teacher on the subject of her most important job. After watching Celestia raise the sun so many times at the castle, Twilight had stopped associating it with something as mundane as a spell – it was a part of who the princess was. She raised the sun every day just as surely as everyone else ate or breathed.

“Can someone actually do that?” she asked, not really comprehending. “Just…turn everything up there off?”

“It would be exceedingly difficult for one other than Us.” Celestia’s wings fluttered and Twilight shielded herself from the dust kicked up by the anxious action. She could tell that the alicorn was getting restless as she tried to unravel the question of the missing spell. “Luna, perhaps, could do so with the aid of the Elements. It would be difficult, but not impossible.” That seemed to trouble her for a moment. “This needs to be corrected.”

The alicorn’s horn lit again. Twilight crouched, ready for another spectacular display of magic, but there was nothing of the sort. Celestia was stock-still save for her neck, which was craning up toward the sky. If Twilight had been any less-attuned to the princess, she would have missed the thin thread of magic stretching up into the sky. The thin wisp of magic was swishing across the sky in grand, unseen strokes. It was incredibly intensive spell threading.

“Our sun is so different,” Celestia murmured. The thin thread of magic was stretched farther than Twilight could feel now. Was the princess directly touching the sun? Could anything, even an alicorn, possess that much power?

There was a humorless snort from the alicorn. “Rejoice, Twilight Sparkle,” she said, breaking concentration to look down at the unicorn, “for thou art not a fool or a charlatan. An answer has been revealed to Us.”

The wan smile on her lips was not one of accomplishment, though. “We wondered how it could be that two events played out to two different outcomes. The sun has provided its answer: both are correct.”

Both were correct? “Princess, my friends and I sealed Discord in stone. What you remember is, well, wrong.”

“What We remember is fighting Discord with the help of the Elements and Luna. Tell Us – can thou not remember an instance when that twas true?”

She could. Dear Celestia, she could. The princess herself had told her the story of how she and Luna defeated Discord, but that…

“No,” Twilight whispered.

“Yes.” Celestia let out a deep breath as dawn broke over the distant horizon. It was a sun reborn, a young sun, large and bright that chased away the darkness in the sky. With its ascendance, Celestia bathed in its light and power, deaf to anything but the call of her seat of power embracing the world.

Twilight knew the tales and epic poems written about the creature standing before her by heart. This was not a Princess Celestia twisted by Discord like she had feared – this was a Princess Celestia at the apex of her power; a story from legend come on four hooves. Together with the Elements of Harmony and the Lunar Princess, this Celestia had broken Discord’s reign of terror herself and sealed the God in living stone.

This was Celestia, the Solar Princess of Equestria, who had ruled nearly three thousand years ago.

Thunderstruck, Twilight could only think, And now she’s here.

Words cannot describe how difficult this chapter was to write. It might only weigh-in at around 8k, but I deleted three different starts until I was satisfied with Celestia's character and some other things. I'd say I've pumped over 20k words into this chapter alone over the last month. Please, please, please give me feedback about the personalities and dialog for this. It honestly helps me get better.