TCB: The Last Pillar | Monster of Unknown Origin

Chapter 2

*Warnings*

"Princess Celestia! Please listen to me, Spike would never do something like this!" Twilight begged, her form slinking low to her mentor's hooves. As she looked up at the Princess, she saw sadness in her bright magenta eyes. Twilight's head fell to the wooden floor, tears running down her face.

"I recognize that he is family to you, as he is to I, but he was the only one there at the scene," Celestia nuzzled Twilight as she cried, "I will get to the bottom of this, I give you my word Twilight,"

Twilight looked up to her eyes, and nodded sadly.

Standing upright, the Princess made her way to the door, flanked by two Royal Guards. However, a collective chill passed through the air; it was if someone had died right where they were standing. After a moment, they continued on, dismissing the strange feeling as some sort of draft or breeze coming in.

This is only the beginning,

The Princess stopped outside of the library door, contemplating whether the strange voice had been a creation of her own thoughts. As time ticked by, the sounds of the rain were slowly washed away by an abnormal ringing in both of her ears. Celestia shook her head, and all was silent. Smiling to herself nervously, she strode ahead and caught up with her Guards, her hooves clacking against the cobblestone floor. She was nearing her chariot, and soon she would be back home at the palace, ready for a nice hot bath.

Princess...

The voice thundered like a crack of lightning, and for the briefest second, she saw an unfamiliar face of blues and whites manifest itself within the window of the carriage, its glowing turquoise eyes boring into her soul with unimaginable hatred. Celestia could feel the hairs in her mane stop in the air, and the electrical current running through the atmosphere.

For the first time in one thousand years, Princess Celestia, sole ruler of the land of Equestria, felt fear.

I watched as the target of my manic fixation left, but I had let her slip away to build her strength; I too had to build up my own. As she departed, a sense of satisfaction came from recalling her terror, or the panicked urgency in her retreat. Oh, how I savored it. But with my delight came my disgust, somewhere there was a part of me that still cared for such naive things.

My ethereal form was slowly losing it's shape. I had to return to the cove.

I took to the sky, my powers propelling me forward through the still cloudy heavens. As I ascended, I watched the innocent ponies go about their lives in the rain, but it seemed they were unaccustomed to my work. Tarps of black and blue were cast over the market place, and the street lights flickered into life. The rainfall, previously passing through my non-existent flesh, began to flash and sizzle upon me.

I bolted in a clap of thunder, rocketing over the nearby forest, towards a river that I had begun to call home. My form solidified as I went, arcs of electricity coursing around me, forming small tissues along my arms and legs. As the process continued, I angled upwards, then dived down into the course of the water. As I sank deeper and deeper, the water getting darker and darker, light began to seep through the cracked stone beneath the surface, and I disassembled the fragments with my mysterious powers.

As they parted, I put forth a wave of energy to prevent the boiling water around me from entering my residence, and I descended within. The fragments reforming behind me, I floated down to the bottom of the spherical chamber, towards the cold limestone. My 'skin' had started the crawl over my now developing 'skeleton', and I flexed my foreign muscle tissue for the first time. While I could not feel, the sight of my own physical body reassured me that there was still something of a human left in me, despite the strange patterns and etchings along the tissue.

*What did you do?*

I turned around to face the voice, a small orb of blue flame hovering ahead of me.

"She has been informed of her coming demise,"

Fool! You cast thy hand when we hold the element of surprise! Art thou attempting to rid us of existence?

My voice sank slightly, static growling through my speech, "No, however I-"

Freedom is a quality thine soul has not, I am thy master, do recall this; thou can be removed from this plane as easily as thou was't brought in. Do not test my patience.

I was suddenly forced backwards, colliding with the wall behind me. As I began to comprehend what had happened, my newly developed nociceptors flaring in mild pain. Anger seeped through me as I launched forward, drawing forth a long blade formed from my own energy.

"What is your reason for bringing me here? What cruel injustices has the Tyrant brought forth upon you?! Your fall was your own, my entire realm was wiped away by this monster!"

Do NOT, EVER, speak as such at myself, for I will end you!

"You know as well as I that you cannot, I am your only instrument! How will you strike a nail without a hammer, or any other tool?" I spoke as I strode forward, my voice distorting in the waves of sound, "You may do so, but without myself, you are nothing but a legend."

A demonic shriek ripped through my frame as the ball of flame soon exploded into many sparks, before digging into the stone below and pulling them together into a structure. As the pieces came together, an alicorn of stone was constructed, pieces of stone forming a mouth, and bright blue light shining through the empty sockets of where eyes should have been.

"I AM NIGHTMARE MOON, WHELP, THINE PRESENCE IS A BLIGHT ON MY WORLD, THE OCCUPANCY IS MY OWN WORK! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE AS YOU WILL YOURS!"

A long moment of silence stretched between us. I rose into the air, and turned my back on her, digging into the walls with my arcane energy and pulling massive blocks of stone out of the forming depression. I glanced over my shoulder back at her before I continued.

"Then formulate your attack, as I shall formulate mine."

"Hey, Mrs.Cake, can I leave early today? I've got that physical therapy session with Rarity tomorrow."

A pink mane shot up behind a counter, followed by a muffled, "Sure hun!"

Pinkie was working another long evening shift at Sugarcube Corner before she began to experience one of her episodes as she was removing her apron, but she realized something was wrong. Mrs.Cake noticed that Pinkie looked distant, and called out to her.

"Pinkie, deary, are you okay?"

The dreary pony looked up and flashed a weak smile, "Yeah, I just got a woozy, I'll be-"

She lost her balance within the kitchen and crumpled to the tiled floor, her head colliding with the ceramic. Mrs.Cake galloped towards her, accompanied by her coltfriend Caramel.

'This is not good.'

As they began to panic and call for help, their voices blurring into one another, Pinkie felt bile rise to her throat.

Pinkie Pie rose her head slightly as she uttered a two pleading words;

"Get out."

All hell broke loose as the bakery descended into a sinkhole, followed soon by the town hall, the library, the boutique and most of the Sweet Apple Acres orchards. The Cake twins screeched as the entire structure slammed into the bottom of a watery pit, the liquid bursting through the lower floor windows and flooding the building immediately. Caramel was pushed into the wall by the force of the water, and lost consciousness. Pinkie was taken away with the tide, her body flowing limply in the current as Mrs.Cake ascended to the higher floors, away from the water.

Turning back, she bit onto Caramel's coat and began to drag him up out of the icy water, carrying him up onto dry carpet. She then noticed that there was a certain pony missing.

"Pinkie!"

Seeing no sign of the unstable mare, she assumed with her strange tendency to evade harm she would be alright, and went up to the twins with her coltfriend. However, on the last step, the house shifted once more, Mrs.Cake knocking her head against the wall. Her grip loosened, Caramel rolled down the stairs into the water, joined by a stunned blue pony.

As the twins cried for help, the house continued is descent into the pool of water.