Deals of the Devil

Dark Sins

Dark lights flickered around the chamber, as the flames from dimly light candles danced in the darkness. Nothing could be heard in the oppressive landscape. If death had a voice this place was sure be it.

Large blue flames suddenly began to grow and pulsate in the middle of the rooms antechamber, growing as if they had a life of their own; spinning and dancing around an unseen force, and with a flash of foul light, he appeared.

The living embodiment of chaos couldn't help but grin at this new gift he held within his evil magic. It was all coming together for him now and he would let nothing get in his way.

With a flick of his horn the ground began to shift and stir, like dark blood, it began to reshape its form into whatever he wished. This was his domain, and he had control.

After a few moments of sickening undulating, the ground began to fix into place, a large obsidian basin now stood proud in the center of the room.

A demonic grin formed on his face, as he placed the small pulsating yellow shard into the basin.

“Time to begin, and nothing will stop me now,” for something so vile, his voice was as smooth as silk.

“Nothing will stop me this time, nothing at all.”

The girls wasted no time in their summons from the Princess, they caught the first train to Canterlot.

There had been some protests about leaving Fluttershy behind at first, but Twilight assured them that nurse Tenderheart and nurse Redheart would be able to take care of her during their leave of absence.

The trip went along, almost in total silence, as no one on that train had any idea of what was going on, or who was to blame for all of this. It did not help that the nightmares had badly affected both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow was tired throughout the whole trip, but outright refused to sleep. While Pinkie was a shadow of her former cheery self, after realizing the dreams may have been true.

As the train skidded to a halt at Canterlot,  a normal citizen would have been shocked at the amount of guards waiting at the station.

“We have had escorts before, but nothing like this I wonder if something is wrong,” Twilight thought to herself, but paid it no attention as a guard began to approach her.

“Twilight Sparkle?” motioned the guard, “I am here to escort you to the Princess, she wants to see you as soon as possible. Please follow me.”

“Come on girls, we had best see what this is all about.” With that, Twilight and her friends began the short trip into Canterlot proper.

The castle was as opulent as the day it was built, something about it always reminded Twilight of safety.

Right now, however, there was an aura of darkness around the old castle. Something was wrong she knew it, heck, they all knew it. Without further delay, they began to make their way to the throne room and hopefully find some answers.

Princess Celestia paced around her throne room, any onlooker would only see the calm and collected Princess just as she normally is going about her day.

This was not the case however, she was worried, scared even.

Something had happened, some disturbance in the natural magic of Equestria. It felt wrong to her, like some slimy creature was slithering over her skin, making her feel almost violated.

She had summoned the living embodiments of the Elements of Harmony to try and help her figure out what could have caused such a ripple in the magic of Equestria. The doors slammed open, and a warm smile drifted onto the face of the Princess.

Her student ran up to her and began to nuzzle her, she was more then happy to return the favour.

“Twilight, I'm glad to see you. I'm sure you have all been wondering why I have called you here.” Simple to say, there was a unanimous nod between the group.

“Twilight have you noticed anything strange with the natural magic of the world?” Twilight began to ponder this question.

“I guess there have been some strange things happening at the moment, but no Princess, I haven’t noticed anything wrong with magic in the area.” Twilight shook her head disappointed that she didn’t have an answer for her mentor.

However Celestia looked slightly shocked at this, “What sort of strange things?” She questioned.

“Well,” Twilight began telling her mentor the story of how both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie both dreamed about the same strange blue flames, and how they both knew there was something they were forgetting with the dream, something terrible.

“Twilight this is most disturbing, but I was wondering, where is the Element of Kindness? Where is Fluttershy?”

Twilight looked visibly shaken at this, Applejack took this opportunity to answer for her. “We don’t rightly know what has happened to her, your highness. We couldn’t wake her up this morn'in.”

“I remember winning in my dream, perhaps the same thing happened to her, and she lost,” added Pinkie Pie, her mane straight as it was when she was a filly.

“Fluttershy would never lose to a dream!” shouted Rainbow, annoyed at the fact that Pinkie could even suggest such a thing, “but the strange thing is that I remember also, it was as if I was tested but I passed.”

“Winning, in a dream?” Celestia began to muse over this information, such things were not unheard of, at least in the realms of dream magic; however, this magic was difficult and not obtainable by a normal unicorn.

Twilight could of done it with a lot of effort, but she would never attack her own friends. This made no sense to the Princess of the Sun.

“This is troubling news indeed. If somepony is using dream magic to invade the minds of the Elements of Harmony, they would have be very powerful indeed. That might have been the cause of the magical disturbances, as dream magic is no easy task.”

“Is there anything can do, anyway we can help Fluttersh....” Before Twilight could finish her sentence an emerald green light appeared, and began to blind everyone within the room, even the Princess of the Sun.

As the light began to dim, sight returned to the stunned ponies in the room. Shock filled them all as they noticed they were no longer alone in the room.

“Greetings Tia. My, my, how you have grown since the last time that I saw you,” the new voice was soft almost motherly, it put even Celestia to shame.

“Who are you and how do you know the Princess,” before anyone could react, Rainbow Dash had rushed towards the intruder trying to size her up.

The new pony in the room had a coat as green as verdant grass, and a mane of such deep emerald it put even the gemstone to shame. She had no wings or horn, so the whole room was puzzled on how an earth pony had managed to teleport alone into the chamber. That, however, was quickly forgotten as they realized for an earth pony she was as tall as Celestia, if not slightly taller.

Her cutie mark was that of a great tree, with roots plunged deep into the ground with vines running down to the bottom of her legs. It was as if her cutie mark was covering her whole body with live plants.

The air around her felt like a summer's breeze on a warm day in the middle of a great forest, and her mane flowed as if there were small woodland creatures frolicking within.

The wide eyed Princess of the Sun began to walk slowly towards the new voice stuttering, Twilight had never seen her mentor like this before.

“M..m.mmm..Mother?” Celestia barely managed to get out, just louder than a whisper.

“MOTHER!?” the occupants shouted at the same time.

“This can’t be possible, you have been gone for almost three thousand years. We had no idea where you went, that one day you upped and vanished.” Celestia, normally cool and collected, was overflowing with emotions.

“My sunshine, I am sorry I had to do that to you and Luna, but it had to be done. You had to take responsibility for the world as our time grew to an end. We agreed that after the windigo problem, we had to step back as too much of our power was leaking into this world causing more harm than good.” The mare seemed sad at this, but resolute.

“Wait a second,” spoke Twilight, “Princess Celestia never talked about her parents. And the windigoes were caused by hate between the three tribes!” Twilight was not impressed that everything she knew about her mentor, and even the history of the world, was shattered.

“Ah, I feel that I should introduce myself to your subjects, my dear daughter. My name is Terra Blossom, mother of the earth and goddess of life, and mother of the celestial twins.” Twilight was shocked to see all of this, but had no reason to disbelieve what Terra was saying.

However, Twilight saw some things that were not adding up. “If you are a goddess, then why are you not an alicorn.” Terra began to laugh, but in a gentle way.

“Little one, would it make you feel better if I was?” Twilight nodded her head, and before she could react the earth pony before her grew large wing that looked like leaves of a great tree and a horn that twisted in on itself like grizzled bark.

Afterwards she began to speak again, “Is this better?” she smiled. Twilight could only nod quietly after seeing such a feat.

“I understand why not being an alicorn would make you mistrust me as you have only ever known great beings of pony kind to be thus, but no I am not an alicorn, rather something more. I am the essence of the earth itself. And it is also my pleasure to be the goddess of earth ponies.”

“So you mean that you're the reason earth ponies are so good with the fields?” Applejack asked the new goddess.

“Indeed, it has always been my pleasure to watch you tend to the earth so well.” nodded the verdant alicorn.

“Celestia, if that is the case then is it also true for unicorns and pegasi?” Twilight questioned her mentor, always hungry for new knowledge even in times like this.

The Sun Princess nodded, “ My uncles are the living spirits of order and chaos, Unicorns belonged to the realm of chaos once, as they were so aloof and magic has always been a chaotic force in the world. However, Pegasi once belonged to the realm of order, warlike they took pride in knowing that they could win anything with a bit of planning and help from the weather.”

Terra began to giggle, “If my brothers could see their children now, Pegasi loving freedom and unicorns studying and learning, they would have a heart attack.”

“We hardly need more chaos anyways, after uncle crafted discord as a laugh” Celestia was not impressed at that.

Terra’s smile quickly melted off her face, as she remembered the reason she had come in the first place. “Pleasantries aside, I come with a warning for you, and your ponies, my dear Tia. When we left this world, we had sacrificed our powers to seal ourselves away, my brothers did not like this and refused at first.

Terra sighed. “After seeing the torment that our bickering was causing on you ponies, the God of Order and myself agreed to the fact. If we had never started fighting each other then the windigoes would have never been brought into existence, and would never of forced you all from your homes.” she looked almost sad now.

“However, chaos is as chaos does, and he didn't want to be confined to another plane. He felt like he still had much work do. So sadly, we were forced to seal him using force, breaking more of his power than was needed.”

Terra trotted to the window and began to look into the distance. “We should have never done that, but order was adamant that it had to be done. I realize now he was as bad as chaos, and I have never fully forgiven myself for it. However, my brother is now doing something I can’t overlook. And although I promised that I would never get involved again, I have come to give you and your ponies a warning.”

“He's the one behind the attacks on my friends isn't he?” Twilight asked.

Terra nodded, “ Indeed he is, he is trying to use the elements of harmony for his own means to restore the power that was once lost to him.”

“So why hasn't Fluttershy woken up, what has he done to her!” Rainbow began to yell.

“I'm so sorry, I felt so bad for him. I started talking to him and he claimed he wanted to test you all, to see if you were really worthy of the elements. I  realised too late, he wasn't testing you at all, he was breaking you in order to steal your elements. He almost won with the element of kindness but before he could get the whole element, it fought back.”

“Fought back?” Celestia asked.

“Indeed, her element sealed her mind way into her body to protect her from more harm. Do not worry she will wake up after a period of time, how long however I do not know, she lost something in his realm.” Terra sighed once again

“She lost a shard of her element, he can use this shard to restore his power if he is ignored long enough. So I give you this choice, you can go and recover what Fluttershy lost  in order to restore her quickly or leave her to recover on her own. If you choose to stop my brother in the mean time that is your choice but I give you the key to do so.”

With that Terra shed a single tear which quickly turned to gemstone.

“Take this gem and travel to the depths of my daughters old castle in the Everfree forest, there you will find three mirrors, we gifted these to them as we left. These mirrors are the entrances to our realms where our power is sealed. Hold the crystal to the mirror of chaos and you will be able to enter his realm for a short time.”

With this she said her goodbyes and was gone in the same emerald light as she came, nary a trace.

The girls began to look at each other a look of both fear and determination on their faces, “Time to save the world again?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Seems like it.” answered Twilight.