Author's Note

Edited 01/08/2019

Hey all, I'm in the process of editing all these chapters so I can continue writing this story. Please note there may be consistency errors in the next few chapters until I get everything edited.

Prologue

Luna’s Secret World

Chapter 1

By: AzureKaRyu

August 12, 1008 PN (Post Nightmare)

“Get AWAY!” Luna screams, risking one last glance behind her before reaching her destination, a very brief clearing in the forest, allowing her to jump into the air and take flight. As she jumped into the air, the terrifying creature that could only be described as a manifestation of her worst nightmare caught her by surprise and cut her right side all the way up to the wing, zooming past her faster than the eye could follow. The searing pain added by a moderately deep cut did nothing to comfort her, and to make matters worse, the blade had managed to damage her wing just enough to be a nuisance.

As the princess of the night felt blood slowly dripping down her side, she bit her lip and steeled herself, pushing through the pain she continued to fly as fast as she could in any direction that might bring her salvation from the monstrosity chasing her.

Luna snuck a peek back, looking to the clearing and finally getting a good long look at her pursuer. That was when she realized that not even her nightmares could come up with something so terrifyingly unique.

The monster that was chasing her did not try and continue its pursuit, as it was most likely unable to fly. It stared at her with pupil-less , crimson eyes and its body was mostly a wispy grey shadow, its arms completely exposed with an interesting lack of skin, the muscle tissue a mix of crimson and grey. Attached to its muscular arms were two metallic devices which harbored one retractable blade each. The blade was very long, probably a foot and a half and while very thin, had a fairly large width of what she estimated to be 4 or 5 inches. The design of the blade was very elegant, reminiscent of a crescent moon with ancient designs engraved into the steel. The monster wore a mask of navy blue colored steel shaped like a very small kite, coming up from its chin in a V shape and curving inwards as it bends around the eyes that are powerful enough to even strike fear into the regent of the night.

Luna turned away from the monster, unable to stare any longer. She flew as fast as she could, sprinting in the air, towards Canterlot seeking asylum from one of the few terror's she could not control. After a moment of gaining her composure and calming down, it quickly became apparent that she was going to be absolutely unable to continue uninterrupted all the way to her home due to the damage to her wing, and unfortunately teleporting was out of the question with so little energy.

Luna reckoned she would be able to fly safely for a max of two or three minutes before her injuries got out of hand. Scanning the forest ahead of her, she quickly spotted another clearing, this time much larger than the previous one. Flying towards it, she closes the distance quickly and drops altitude, surrendering the safety of the air to land back in what was for all intents and purposes a deathtrap in this cursed forest.

After sticking a perfect landing, she took a moment to contemplate whether or not she would be safe for a couple of moments, and after peering around the forest, she was content that the beast had likely given up when she took flight the first time and sighed in relief

Thank the stars. Just what was that thing?

As she pondered, she also took some time to examine her wounds more carefully. It quickly dawned on her that she was bleeding a lot more from the cut on her side than she had previously thought. Luna cursed to herself silently as she prepared a cauterizing spell to mitigate the bleeding as much as possible before she saw was able to seek medical attention back at the castle.

A Small black flame appeared in the air in front of Luna, seemingly sucking the light out of what was an already dark environment. She carefully maneuvered the flame to the bottom of her wound, bringing her foreleg up to her mouth and gently biting down at the same time, preparing to endure quite a painful burn that only the flame from her school of magic could bring.

Just as she was about to apply the flame to the wound, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and the sudden feeling that she was being watched quickly trickled into her mind.

Luna slowly turned her head to the left, and she caught something reflecting moonlight.

Metal

She swung around very quickly and a short distance from her was the same monster she had been running from, taunting her by remaining completely still.

Luna was frozen in fear, her sense of relative safety now completely gone, replaced by a very real sense of impending doom. She was stuck. Thoughts of fleeing didn't even enter her mind, the flame she summoned popping out of existence as her focus broke. Never before in her life had she faced something so capable of paralyzing terror.

How...how does something like this exist!?

A moment later, the monster dashed at her with impossible speed, closing the distance in no more than a blink of the eye.

~~~~~~~

Luna shot up from her bed, hyperventilating. She jumped out of her resting place, throwing the sheets everywhere and charging magic into her horn, preparing something, anything that might save her. It took no more than a moment to realize that she was, in fact, safe.

Shutting her eyes, the youngest of the two sisters took a deep breath, taking a moment to gather herself, and allowing the magic she built up to slowly dissipate into the air around her.

And here I was, thinking myself immune to the terrors of my own domain. It seems nightmares may strike even myself sometimes.

Although not unprecedented, Luna had not had a dream that bad in well over 8 years, when Twilight Sparkle and her little band of friends had finally cleansed her from the parasitic nightmare living in her body, and tormenting her mind.

Quickly checking the time, Luna found that she had greatly overslept. It was 7 P.M., and while it was normal that the Princess of the Night would sleep through the day, she did enjoy having dinner with her sister, and waking up a mere hour before the scheduled shift of celestial bodies was cutting it a little bit close. Not to say that Celestia couldn't do it without her, but there is no reason to cause unnecessary worry for her sister, stars know she does enough of that.

Luna entered her wardrobe and began to prepare.

~~~~~~~

Luna slowly lowered herself to the floor of her balcony after finishing the intense channeling involved in moving the moon and stars. She opened her eyes and looked up to observe her work. Of course, she already had an image in her mind of exactly what she had painted but it was nice to see it with her eyes, and sure enough, though nopony else would see a difference in her sky, there was a new constellation, a crude six pointed star dimly shining on the canvas of vast nothingness.

Seven years already huh. Guess it is about time for a short vacation.

Staring at the constellation, Luna's mind drifted to Twilight Sparkle, the mare who, coincidentally, bore the mark of a six pointed star on her flank.

I rather like that mare. Very curious, and willing to learn. Truly Celestia must feel lucky to have found her.

As it turns out, Twilight's curious nature had pushed the two decently close since her return from the moon, her questions about the time before Nightmare Moon's appearance were, admittedly, a bit too soon, but talking about it turned out to be quite therapeutic, and it had even gotten to the point that she convinced Luna to apprentice her in the arts of wielding a long lost weapon referred to as a spellblade.

Luna had thought that after all the time that had passed the sacred weapon would have been long forgotten, but she should have known better. Twilight was Celestia's student after all.

Twilight had approached her after the Changeling invasion and asked Luna to train her to use one proficiently. When Luna asked why her response was immediate, but well thought out, "Ever since hearing about them I have been particularly interested, and the past couple of years has convinced me I should learn a real way to defend myself and my friends if the elements aren't an option."

Luna could not refuse. It was not often that she would get a chance to teach an art that has, rightfully so, been forgotten. With her sisters permission, she took Twilight's training very seriously, and of she took to it with flying colors. She even forged her a blade, and the accompanying gauntlet that was almost necessary.

Though she was an expert learner, I hope she isn't ever forced to use her skills.

Luna felt a small a small spark shoot up her horn, nothing more than a mild pain. This was the sign she was waiting for.

The bridge had revealed itself in her night sky.

This star bridge would be her pathway to a place that only she knew about. Not even Celestia had found out about her hidden paradise, despite numerous expeditions.

Luna was the creator of this amazing phenomenon. The bridge allowed her to expend massive amounts of her magic to travel to worlds billions of miles away. The world in particular she would be visiting, named Vineral by its inhabitants, was the only one that was receptive to receiving that kind of a magical discharge. It was a world whose continents took up a total of approximately 28% of the massive planet’s surface area, much like the world that harbored equestia. The rest of the surface was covered with water, with some small islands in random areas usually not far off the shores of the larger land masses.

What was more amazing about this place was it’s inhabitants. Yes, like Equestria, the largest species and most advanced species were ponies. But these ponies were different. They sported the elements of both unicorns and earth ponies, but could not fly like the pegasi. Their magic was also limited, they had no horn to channel spells through. Instead they used their front hooves, which was substantially less effective than a horn would be. It was still magic however, and could be used to do almost anything if one was creative enough.

Another interesting thing about this species was that they seemed to be significantly less advanced than Equestria, in every field of study. They had few organized empires, the largest spanning across a quarter of the coldest continent, which Luna had named Iarna, which stood for winter in the ancient magi’s language.

It also seemed that they, for better or worse, loved war. There was constant fighting, huge armies clashing against each other in horrifically bloody battles, and occasionally some smaller city-states skirmishing against one another for land and spoils. This naturally made it hard for technology to advance if it did not directly involve the war effort. Thankfully, these ponies did not know about this star bridge that Luna had created, and she was the only one that knew the spell to channel such long range teleportation anyway.

Different world, different mindsets I suppose.

Currently, the most difficult spell ever performed by a unicorn, or rather, group of unicorns was a massive spell by the name of Ascenders Bane, which was accomplished sometime during Luna's banishment, and took well over a dozen of the most talented unicorns to pull off. Still, Luna's spell was more difficult, required more energy, and had much more intense preparations.

Now, Luna had a decision to make.

She had never let her sister know exactly what she was doing when she went to this place, no more than letting her know that she would be gone for a week. Considering that it has been almost a decade since she'd had a long break, there will likely be little resistance and Celestia will respect her privacy.

At least, she had in the past, before the Nightmare.

The stars would be aligned enough for 10 days, give or take a few hours, which was more than enough time for Luna to safely recover all of her magic. This event only occurred once every seven years, and she hasn't visited the world for a little over a thousand years now, and she was rather curious to see if society had advanced over there at all.

Luna needed a vacation as well. Her recent nightmares have only been getting worse, if infrequent.

A break would be nice. Who knows, maybe the nightmares will resolve themselves after this.

In the end, her positives outweighed her negatives and she decided she was going to go forward to do this, for if she didn't her curiosity would likely be a heavy burden to bear. There was no reason for her to wait an extra decade if she didn't have too.

Luna cracked open her door and told one of the guards “Awaken my sister, should she be asleep, and inform her I will be visiting her in a few minutes.”

The bat winged pegasus saluted and walked down the halls to the other wing of the castle.

Luna went back inside and muttered to herself, “Well, looks like I have some work to do.”

******

Twilight yawned, looking up from her book and turning towards the clock. What? It’s already midnight? She grabbed a bookmark off of the desk next to her using her magic. Digging the bookmark into its place, she levitated the book onto her nightstand.

Getting off of the floor, Twilight started towards her bed. It had been a long day of reading and her sheets and blankets were just calling for her. The lavender unicorn gently got into bed and began to pull the blankets over her body.

Unfortunately for her, right as she was pulling back the sheets and about to enter a place of tranquility, an intense pain shot through her horn, starting at the tip and ending at the base of her skull “AHHH” Twilight fell off her bed onto the oakwood floor and her hooves shot up to her horn, but as quick as it came, the pain disappeared like it had never existed in the first place.

Okay. That was not normal.

It was obvious what this was, it was a magical surge that occur whenever massive amounts of aether is released from a single point. Twilight had to pinpoint the location of this phenomena and inspect the scene, this much of an energy release was the opposite of normal based on the intensity of the feeling in her horn.

Immediately Twilight got to work. Pulling herself from the floor, she started scanning the town for massive amounts of magical residue. Very few unicorns were capable of detecting these intense surges and those that were able to were most likely sleeping, and normally would not awake because of a surge. Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, Twilight was one of those unicorns gifted enough to feel these surges, and she felt as though she had a duty to ensure it was safe.

After a couple of minutes of strenuous searching, Twilight still had not found the source of the surge inside the town, so she was forced to expand her search to the outer parts of the Everfree not far from the town. A few minutes later she expanded her search once more, and the origin of the massive release of energy became apparent. About six miles into the Everfree, a spell of unimaginable power was being channeled, and from the looks of it would take a considerable amount of time to complete.The origin of the spell was about five and a half miles into the Everfree very near the current location of residue, so Twilight went up to her bed and cast a spell. Suddenly a piece of the floorboard said to the side and a chest slowly rose from the mahogany floor. In the chest lay three items. The first item was a sheathed spellsword, a special sword given only to the most talented swordsmen and mages. A spellsword was made with runes carved into the blade of the sword which allowed talented unicorns like herself channel spells through the sword to make it more adaptable and deadly. This was given to her by Luna shortly after she completed a special course after the changeling invasion.

The sword was made out of a special material called fachium, a very, very rare metal that is almost as hard as diamond and one of the few metals that can conduct magic. The hilt of the sword was purple and the blade itself was silver with an velvet streak in an erratic pattern running from base to tip.

The next item was simply a dark blue cloak, also given to her by the Princess of the Night, simply made to conceal her identity if need be.

The third and final item is known as a spell gauntlet. This very special item was created for very powerful mages such as herself give an extra point to channel their magic through, though like the spellsword, the gauntlet and its tricks had also been lost to the ages.

Twilight never, ever, with absolutely no exceptions, used any of these things unless she was alone andgoing into an area of high risk, such as the unknown of the Everfree. After the Changeling invasion, Twilight had braced herself with the fact that sometimes she would have to take violent action to protect herself and her friends, and sometimes she would have to do unspeakable actions, but she would only ever even consider if there was absolutely no other option.

Donning her gear, Twilight ran outside her home and inscribed a tiny teleportation rune into the ground to assist her in her fairly long distance travel.

Channeling magic into the rune, Twilights vision flashed purple and she reappeared at her target location, a clearing in the forest of the Everfree. This was the closest place that she knew about to the unknown magical surge, and time was of the essence.

Scanning once more to see if the magical residue had moved, Twilight was pleased to note that not only had it stayed in the same spot, but she was rather close to the source.

Twilight started her trek. It would not be a long journey, the lavender unicorn was capable of running quite quickly when she needed to, a side effect from her exploits saving equestria multiple times, and, of course, Luna's brutal training regimen when she was learning how to wield long lost weapons.

Twilight tilted her head upward, looking at the stars. Such a beautiful sight will never get old she thought, Luna really does do a wonderful job painting the sky every night.

As the mare stared onward, she noticed a very peculier pattern with the stars tonight. There seemed to be a group of stars forming a constellation she had never seen before it. It kind of looked like… well she couldn’t tell, but it kind of looked like a star.

The lavender colored mare looked back down and noticed a faint blue glow in the distance. I must be getting close Twilight thought to herself, she noted the odd constellation and would be sure to check it out when she got back home.

Twilight slowed down to a light jog for the rest of the way. It was only a matter of minutes before the mare reached the edge of the glow.

What she saw when she got there was absolutely amazing.

There was a massive clearing, most likely a mile in diameter and almost perfectly circular. Inside the circle was a six pointed star with edges expanding to the corner of the clearing and met with trees. The trees had massive runic inscriptions that now sported a blue hue, and inside the six pointed star were dozens upon dozens of magic circles and inscriptions.

By Celestia… this... this is the creation of a goddess! I've never anything like this!

Twilight was wrong in her assumption, but not too far off. In the center, she noticed a dark blue unicorn… no, Alicorn standing in the center with an intense brightness surrounding her horn. Twilight could do nothing but stand in awe as the magic circles and inscriptions flashed blue, and she had somewhere in her mind realized Luna must have been casting a spell of proportions never seen by the eyes of any living unicorn.

Twilight had no option other than to watch. She knew she would be safe outside the magic circles, there's no way Luna would be doing anything dangerous so near a population center. She fell to the ground and her jaw dropped, just watching the Alicorn do her work.

Luna was surrounded by magic circles, and floating around her were many small runes. Her eyes were closed and she was obviously in intense focus. Her hair flowed quicker than normal and seemed to glow the same color as everything else.

This... This is beautiful. This is insane! This can't be real! Twilight couldn’t help but to stare. The alicorn at the center of it all was the most impressive pony Twilight had ever seen. Right now, Celestia paled in comparison to her younger sister. Her focus, the amount of magic, her posture and her knowledge to even cast something like this. This was the stuff of dreams to Twilight. No, that's wrong, she couldn't even dream of something like this!

And then, everything pulsed outward.

There was an explosion of energy, and the six pointed star that had been previously trapped by the edges of the clearing had expanded outward destroying all vegetation in its path and scarred the tress, and the new boundaries put Twilight right in the danger zone.

Oh no

The magical prodigy panicked and shot up from the ground, but quickly relaxed when nothing else happened. Right as Twilight let her guard down however, her vision flashed blue and she was pulled into something she had never imagined before.

She was pulled into the matrix of a spell that likely couldn't be classified on the normal scales, and one that required more power than Celestia likely had at her disposal.

Now Twilight started really panicking.

Oh no oh no oh no what do i do!?

This was a very dangerous situation for Twilight. She knew that if she tried interrupting or leaving the matrix, she could cause the spell to fail and collapse which would, with this much power, most likely destroy a majority of the everfree forest and potentially damage a significant portion of her home town.

Twilight could always do nothing, but that would be dangerous as well. Now she was pulled into the matrix that another pony had started, so Luna would have to pour more of her power into the spell to make sure that whatever she was doing would allow for both of them.

Thats impossible. She thought immediately. There is no way that Luna will be able to complete this monstrosity of a spell now that i’ve been an idiot and been sucked into this.

So, Twilight could not sit and do nothing, but she couldn’t leave the spell either. This left her with only one option. She had to analyze the spell, and she had pour her energy into the spell to assist Luna, and she had to do it quickly, before it collapsed upon itself.

Immediately starting from the center and moving out, Twilight discovered the meaning and purpose behind each rune and inscription, each magic circle and in the end the star itself, all at a speed she didn't think even she was capable of.

This was a teleportation spell that the world has never seen before. It was designed to transport a pony millions of miles, or thousands of ponies a few miles, but seeing as they were the only two in the circle, she took the more realistic choice.

But.. Why? Why would she need all this for a teleporation spell? Is she going to visit the moon or something?!

Twilight had no time to sit in awe, her and Luna's lives were very much on the line. She focused magic into her horn, and a magenta glow blended with the already existing blue. She poured as much of her power as she could into the spell, praying it would be enough to get them out of this safely.

Luckily for Twilight, it didn’t take very long for Luna to finalize the spell. With the brightest flash of light the mare would probably ever witness, she lost consciousness, and she would not like waking up in the morning.