It was a nice spring day in Ponyville; the weather control team had left the minimum amount of clouds in the sky, Celestia’s sun was shinning bright, everypony took advantage of this perfect day to hangout with friends and do picnics in the park, every single pony but one, the purple unicorn and her dragon assistant were in a field far from the town, the unicorn who wore a white scientist coat and protection goggles was tinkering with a metal plate and a tripod while the purple dragon held a clipboard and a quill.
“Metal plate’s position adjusted”
“Check”
“Anti-incendiary force field set”
“Check”
“Okay Spike, we’re all ready to start the experiment” The purple mare clapped her hooves as a sign of excitement.
The dragon crossed his arms, still holding the clipboard and quill he asked “Twilight, why exactly we are doing this in the middle of nowhere and not in the library?”
Twilight huffed, clearly annoyed with the dragon’s question “Will you stop eating gems while I’m explaining the experiments; every time is the same thing” she stopped to calm herself and continued “We are testing here because this particular spell can cause a lot of heat, so in case the force field fails I don’t want to be on a building made of wood in a town made of high flammable constructions”.
“ Didn't the Princess said to you to stop testing dangerous spells and leave them to the Royal Guard’s Research Division?” Spike raised his browns; it was not every day that Twilight would go against one of Celestia’s orders.
The unicorn smiled sheepishly “Is not that dangerous Spike, it’s just a simple heat beam that can go trough steel, and it can be very useful”
Looking at her assistant’s face Twilight could imagine what he was thinking “Seriously? Not that Dangerous?” After a minute of a stare contest Spike sighed “Okay do what you want, but don’t blame me when everything go wrong”
“Everything will work just fine Spike, so now lest start this experiment” The unicorn started focusing her magic “Now comes the hard part, weaving the spell” As she focused in her spell Twilight failed to notice the speeding object that was going towards her head. She only felt a heavy pain in her head before fainting.
Twilight began to open her eyes, wincing as the light began to invade her vision “Ugh… What was that thing?”
“Umm…Twilight are you okay?” The unknown soft voice seemed to be very close from her but the sharp headache and the blurriness of her vision made impossible to identify it’s source.
“Oh my… what if I she never wake up?” the unknown voice appeared again.
“Don’t worry Fluttershy, she is just taking a nap” Even with the headache and ringing ears she could tell her assistant’s voice.
“Thank you for the worry about my safety Spike, you are the best” The sarcastic tone in Twilight’s voice was apparent, but her struggle to keep her balance dismissed any impact she could have on the dragon that was now rolling on the ground laughing, probably because the impact had left a huge lump on her head that made her look more like a goat than a unicorn.
The yellow pegasus hurried besides her friend helping her to stand “Oh Twilight, I’m glad you are okay”
“Sorry Fluttershy but ‘okay’ is not the way I’m feeling right now” Finally being able to stand for herself, the unicorn began to inspect the damages “okay, now that I can see and hear again it don’t look so bad, just a little lump in the head, but it will heal quickly”
“Umm… Twilight?”
“Yes, Fluttershy” the purple mare turned her head to her friend.
“I don’t know anything about magic but… should you really been doing a spell right now?”
“What you’re talking…”The unicorn looked up to her own horn, yes it was glowing, a signal that there’s magic energy coursing trough it, but instead of the uniform light purple glow it was a wild dark red flame, Twilight remembered seeing that only other time and she knew that it meant something was wrong.
“Fluttershy, get away from her” Spike, whose curiosity got picked when he heard the pegasus’ question, tried to get her away from the unicorn but was too late. A red energy bolt flew from Twilight’s horn and went straight towards the yellow mare.
Twilight watched in slow motion as her shy friend was struck with the condensation of energy sending her flying back a few meters before landing unconscious on the ground.
“Fluttershy!!!!” Twilight’s mind became confuse as the adrenaline started to make effect. The first thing that she did was to run besides her injured friend, she checked her hearth, it was weak but still beating, her breathing was shallow and in the area which the spell had hit was now burned tissue that was starting to bleed.
“Spike, go to the hospital tell them we have a pony with a serious magical burn” She didn’t need to say twice, the purple dragon was already in his way towards the town.
“Okay now I have to be sure she don’t have any internal injuries” The unicorn tried to reach for her magic but something blocked it “Oh no, the spell malfunction must caused my body to block the magic reserve, I will not be able to use magic for hours”
While thinking what she could do to help her friend something caught Twilight’s attention, an unmistakable rainbow streak cutting the sky and going towards her direction, the sight brought joy to the purple mare “Rainbow Dash, she can help me take Fluttershy to the hospital”.
As the blue pegasus started to get close from Twilight’s position the unicorn noticed two strange things: one, she was going too fast, she probably wouldn't be able to stop before hitting the ground, Two, in her face there was expression of pure rage that she had never saw before.
“GET AWAY FROM HER” this simple phrase cleared Twilight’s doubts; she tried to run, with no avail, Rainbow Dash was way faster than her.
-Earlier that day-
Two pegasus were hovering above a field that was close to Ponyville, one of them, a blue mare with rainbow colored mane, was holding an oval ball and yelling to the other pegasus, also a mare with yellow coat and pink mane “C’mon Fluttershy you have hold the ball when I throw it” the blue pony was clearly annoyed with the lack of physical ability shown by the light yellow pony.
“I don’t know Dash, it so fast, what if hits me, it could kill me and I can’t die so young, who is going to care of my animals?”
Rainbow Dash struck her head with her hoof “Fluttershy, for the last time the ball won’t kill you, will not even leave a bruise” but when she removed her hoof from her eyes Rainbow Dash saw the other pegasus making a pleading face that would let most of the ponies defenseless, but she was not most of ponies, so she shrugged it off “Okay Fluttershy, I will make the thrown a little bit slower, but not much I have a reputation, you know”
Preparing to throw, the blue pegasus flexed the front leg which was holding the ball “READY…THERE IT GOES” the blue mare’s hoof did a semicircular movement sending the ball away in the horizon. Meanwhile the other pegasus was in ground curled trembling in fear.
“FLUTTERSHY!!!”
“Oh my … I’ll get it” so there she went, the yellow pegasus flew slowly towards the direction the ball went. Again Rainbow’s hoof found it’s way to her head.
After waiting more than five minutes the athletic mare began to get inpatient “Where that pony went? Making another ball? It would be way faster”
More five minutes passed “That’s it I’m going look for her” Rainbow dash started to fly towards the direction where the other pony had went, looking at the ground to see if she could find her friend.
When she finally found the pegasus, she found a quite peculiar scene, Spike was rolling in the ground while Fluttershy was talking with Twilight, whose horn was glowing in a strange red color.
Suddenly the mood changed, Spike began to yell something like “Away from her”. Rainbow Dash saw a red flash escape from Twilight’s horn and hit Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus fell unconscious, the hovering mare couldn’t believe what she had just saw “Twilight attacked Fluttershy? Why? Could she be a changeling? Must be, that’s the only thing that can explains it” When Spike began to run for his life she had her confirmation, so she began to fly towards her target, ready to destroy the creature that endangered her friends.
Twilight felt a solid hit at her ribs, the kinetic power of the pegasus sent her flying meters, the adrenaline of seeing one of her friends heavy injured was still coursing trough her veins, so the pain of the impact was numbed permitting the unicorn to be back on her hooves quite quickly, looking at her attacker Twilight saw that the pegasus had already formed a defensive position in between her target an Fluttershy.
The unicorn tried to get close to her friend only to be received by an angry snarl “Dash why are you doing this?”
The anger in the pegasus eyes just got stronger “It was me who should be asking, why do you attacked Fluttershy?”
“Dash, it was an accident” Twilight again tried to get close to her hurt friend now being stopped by the pegasus yell.
“Get away from her monster, and who gave you permission to call me Dash? Only friends can call me that”
The last line hit the unicorn deep “Am I really a monster?” she tried to find solace in her own mind, but in that state of sorrow not even her mind was in her side “Of course you are a monster, you hurt one of your friends, the whole Trixie fiasco was your fault, you brainwashed the whole town, you don’t know how to control your own magic, and every time you use it you put everypony in danger” With all her fears and doubts resurfacing on her mind Twilight couldn't even control herself.
Her conscious was so trapped inside itself she couldn't even hear Rainbow Dash screaming “Yeah go away changeling” as the hurt lavender unicorn ran towards the Everfree forest.
The Everfree Forest was home to a diverse range of dangerous creatures, in this Celestia forgotten woods few ponies dared to enter, one of this ponies was Twilight Sparkle, she would frequently scout this wretched grove, researching about the different types of magic that were found in the shadowy place.
And again the unicorn found herself in the middle of that cryptic area, but her situation was not like the other times, this time she wasn't calmly walking trough the bushes to find new samples for research, that day she was madly rushing trough the labyrinth of trees, her white robe was shred by the sharp branches and now it‘s pieces laid scattered in forest’s soil, her safety goggles were lost in the multitude of flora and fauna.
But her way of movement was not the only thing that differed that day from the others, in any other day Twilight would be in her top condition in both physical and mental standards before entering Everfree, but fate had lead her to be now in the most dangerous area in all Equestria without food and water, with her ribs broken, her coat full of bruises and her mind thrown deep in a whirlpool of confusion.
“At least here I won’t hurt anypony, Celestia can find a better apprentice, Spike has friend that like and will take care of him” The pony stumbled in the root of a tree and fell in the ground, the strain of running an hour without stop together with the pain of broken bones and the sorrow of a future without seeing her friends and family made her body stop working.
Her mind was following her physical form’s example, the light signals that got to her eyes became confuse, everything was transformed in a multicolored blur, even the sounds lost their meaning, her world, that was now incomprehensible, began to get darker and darker, spite that she managed to get a glimpse of something getting nearer, it was a mixture of red and orange that smelled like sweat and apples, but before she could tell what the figure was everything got pitch black.
The sheer darkness embraced Twilight, in all directions she could only she a endless void, and that pure emptiness stayed for what she thought was some minutes, until something caught her attention, a source of light, the illuminating beams escaped from a rectangular shaped opening that seemed to call the unicorn to it’s encounter, she tried to answer it’s pleading by running towards the exit, but something was strapped to her legs preventing her from getting to the light.
She looked again to the hole in the dark expanse, only to find it was a opened door in the end of a corridor, Twilight blinked, she wasn't more in the black nothingness, she was now in a stone pathway that leaded to a opened wood door “MOVE” a voice came from nowhere and scared the poor mare, she tried to walk, but when she lifted one of her legs she felt a cold pressure against her coat, looking down she found the source of this alien felling, there were shackles, that bounded not only her four legs but also her neck.
Questions began to surface in the unicorn’s mind asking why she was in that situation, the questions would have to wait “I SAID MOVE!” again the disembodied voice appeared, now clearly angry with Twilight’s refuse to walk.
“Okay, okay I will walk” So the purple mare slowly proceeded toward the door, every step she completed made the characteristic sound of metal hitting itself.
As she started to get closer from the only source of light in the stone pathway, she could hear voices, every inch closer to the opening made the sound clearer, till she finally deciphered the sound, there was a mob of ponies cheering, but they weren’t yells of happiness like in the Summer’s Sun Celebration, they were screams of the most pure hate, swears that could easily traumatize a filly and a sadness so deep it could be felt even without words.
When she finally made to the door she expected to be hit by the sunlight, but in the world outside there was no sun, the sky was populated by grey clouds.
Seeing her outside made the ponies, who were screaming, to go quiet, Twilight took this chance to watch her surrounds.
She was in a wood platform in the middle of a square; the ponies that stood in the ground level were all clad in black clothing, in the elevated area there were a group of ponies, that consisted of four ponies and a smaller form all wearing black hoods hiding their faces, a pink alicorn with multicolored mane and a bigger alicorn, who had a white coat and a flowing multicolored mane, her usual regalia was missing.
Celestia’s horn lit, in a flash a scroll appeared in front of her imposing figure, with a booming voice that was more know to used by her sister, the alicorn started to recite the words written in the black piece of paper that she grasped with her magic “TWILIGHT SPARKLE, YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY IN THE CHARGES OF MURDERING, FLUTTERSHY THE ELEMENT OF KINDNESS, A JURY OF YOUR EQUALS DECIDED THE EQUIVALENT PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR CRIMES TO BE DEATH IN THE GUILLOTINE”.
Twilight could see the sadness in her tutor’s eyes when she proffered the sentence
“DO YOU HAVE ANY FINAL WORDS?”
The little unicorn could only swing her head and walk towards the guillotine that was placed in the middle of the wood construction; she placed her head in the contraption and waited.
“MAY THE GODS HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL” With the swing of a rope the wood piece that held the scythe was dislocated and the steel blade began to fall.
The unicorn waited, she waited to fell the cold touch of the metal going trough her neck, she waited to fell the hot blood gushing from the open wound and she waited to fell her head falling in the bucket.
But what she felt was warmth in her closed eyelids; wanting to dissipate the forming heat she opened her eyes, only to fell the morning sun launching an attack at her eyes “Why there’s sun?” when her vision got used to the strong light she began to scout the surrounding space.
She was in a bedroom, but not hers, the room where she was in had a single window a door and very little furniture, to be exact it only had a bed where she was sitting, a bedside table that had a cup of water in it and a closet, the walls were made of wood without painting or paper.
“Where am I?” When she tried to leave the bed, she felt a strong pain coursing trough her body, looking down to her body she found the source of pain, all her chest area was bandaged and her coat was full of smaller patches of dressing.
“What…” realization hit her, images of that morning incident began to flash trough her mind, again she began to feel exhausted both physically and mentally, and that exhaustion was too much for Twilight, forcing her to drift into deep sleep.