Primal Nature

It was the day after Twilight's return from her expedition in the Everfree forest, and she still hadn't finished recounting the experience to Luna. Not through any fault of her own, she was simply too busy in Celestia's absence. Twilight had been kept in the dark about this "incident" at the Castle, but she hadn't earned her position for nothing: judging by how busy Luna had been, when she was normally reasonably free to attend to her own business outside of the Court, Celestia must have been unable to perform her royal duties. Is it really so serious that they won't tell their own student, who also happens to be Magister and their chief advisor? Twilight wondered, somewhat bitter at her continued ignorance. Still, at least I'm out of the bedroom for a while. She walked down the hallway with hardly a limp, a result of her extended resting period. Even the wound inflicted by the Chimera's claw had healed up nicely, and her burns were nowhere to be seen or felt, though some fur was still off-colour slightly.

The purple unicorn had decided to check up on the other magi in the R&D department, a facility she was in charge of, to see how they had been doing in her absence. The other magi were each talented in a specific type of magic, unlike Twilight, who possessed broad understanding of a variety of styles and techniques. Working together, they had devised new spells and theories, as well as developed new technology. Simple spells that serve useful purposes enchanted onto devices, which, when powered by magical energy, activate the enchantment. More complex gadgets, like long-range communication devices, require a great deal more effort to create and ensure the enchantments hold. But, the overall benefit is that the spells can be used by anypony, as long as they have some sort of power source, and they can be easily produced en masse. Twilight hurriedly made her way through the Castle, but she managed to draw attention to herself all the same; ponies looked at her worriedly, the whole castle anxious from the events of the last few days. The Magister felt something else too. The atmosphere felt different. A strange... presence. It was unnerving, to say the least.

Twilight glanced at the guards posted at the entrance to the Magical Research and Development department, who nodded her through with barely a glance. No-one could replicate the unique feel of her magic, so she was never asked for proof of her identity. She trotted through and glanced around the facility. It was very utilitarian, entirely sterile white. The multiple work stations, upon which sat the devices, chemicals and spell books that were used in the experiments. There was only one mage she recognised in the lab: Event Horizon, the expert on kinetic magic, who was manipulating pieces of a 3D puzzle with his mastery of forces.

"Hey, Horizon! Where is everypony?" Twilight called out as she walked over to the middle-aged stallion.

Horizon looked surprised for a second, then turned and greeted her with a gentle smile. "Hello, Miss Sparkle! I'm afraid this whole business with Princess Celestia seems to have shaken everypony up a bit. Not to worry, I'm sure the rest of us old fools will be back soon enough. How a young talent such as yourself puts up with us for this long, I will never know." he joked with a small chuckle.

Twilight laughed with him. "Oh, come on. You're not THAT old! Besides, you all made my move back to Canterlot all the more bearable. I'm really grateful..." Twilight looked down at her hooves, humbled by the older unicorn.

"Now is not the time for you to be grateful, Magister Sparkle! You have plenty to do as it is! Don't worry, I'll send for you when the others return. Personally, I think you should be getting on with your own pet project in your own time, as it's quite lonely down here. I don't mind; I'm only meditating right now, so the quiet is only beneficial." He  waved a hoof at the 3D puzzle floating on it's own before him. "The implications of your research into magic styles will prove to be very beneficial, correct?" Twilight nodded proudly, making the kinetic mage grin cheerfully.

"Now, take these and get going!" A hole spontaneously opened in the space next to him. 6 books and a collection of research equipment launched out of it like confetti from Pinkie Pie's party cannon, which Twilight caught in her telekinetic grip. Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Twilight left the department with a wave of a hoof. As she walked out the doorway, she glanced up out an overhead window, catching a glimpse of a damaged tower. Celestia's tower. She grimaced: Just what the hay happened when I was gone? Twilight's thoughts asked. Suddenly, a telepathic link attempted to connect to her mind. Frowning, she gave permission for the contact- Twilight, come to the throne room right away! We will explain when you get here, Luna's thoughts relayed into her mind. The connection broke just as quickly as it started, and Twilight only hesitated for a split second before she felt the familiar sensation of her body dispersing with a brilliant violet flash.

Luna paced angrily back and forth in the throne room, momentarily stopping to glare daggers at sister before she resumed her nervous habit. Princess Celestia just watched her wearily.

"We cannot believe this…" Luna muttered, loudly enough for the other Alicorn to hear.

"Used the Royal We again," Celestia stated automatically, barely acknowledging Luna's anger at the correction. "I still fail to see the problem, Lulu."

"The problem? THE PROBLEM?!" Luna turned and shouted in the Royal Canterlot voice, an archaic and very loud tone of voice originally in use over 1000 years prior, before catching herself and speaking at a more bearable volume. "The problem, Tia, is that you neglected to tell me that you were planning to do something like that, and even more worryingly, you didn't tell Twilight either. You know, one of the most knowledgable ponies in Equestria?"

"Magister Sparkle didn't need to get involved. She works hard enough as it is…" Celestia's voice took on an odd tone as she spoke.

Luna snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner. "Are we talking about the same mare here? She took full responsibility of all her duties in weeks. WEEKS, when it should've taken MONTHS. She's busy day in, day out, but she's so efficient that she somehow finds the time to make magical and scientific breakthroughs on the sidelines!"

Celestia didn't respond immediately, simply staring off to the side for a while. Eventually, she turned her head and gazed at Luna right in her eyes. "Are you saying that I need Twilight? That I am powerless without her?" she asked, ice-cold and deadly serious. Her lunar counterpart was taken aback; she knew Celestia to be prideful, almost arrogant sometimes, but that was back before her banishment to the Moon over a thousand years ago. The solar diarch that had welcomed her with open arms upon her return, and subsequent release from her darker half's control by Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Element Bearers, had been calm, laid-back, cheerful and wise, traits that had formed in her millennium of ruling alone. Now, however, the Princess was acting very strangely, something that scared Luna more than she liked to admit. Before she could respond to the accusation, a burst of energy silenced the two arguing god-siblings.

"…Well?" Twilight asked. Luna turned to look at her, grinning genuinely, despite the situation at her first and best friend. The purple mare bowed her head ever so slightly at the two princesses in acknowledgement. Twilight smiled warmly at Luna before gazing at Celestia with intensity. The alabaster Alicorn, to Luna's satisfaction, practically smouldered under the glare, but stood tall.

Celestia cleared her throat gently before speaking. "Ah, my faithful student. Luna called you here so we could bring a matter to your attention-"

"If this matter is anything other than why you look like you went on a trip through Tartarus to make friends, then you have your priorities in the wrong place," the Vizier interrupted calmly, making both diarchs falter slightly. Celestia couldn't deny that she looked haggard: her mane, normally prismatic and billowing in the solar wind, was limp and fading to its natural pink colour. Her magenta eyes were tired and ringed with black. "Also, why have you not told me what happened to you, and ordered Luna to keep quiet about it as well?"

"It was not neces-" Celestia tried to interject.

"I hold the most important titles in the kingdom, as well as being personal student to both princesses. You of all ponies know that I don't normally throw my weight around, but I just thought I'd remind you of those facts before you dare try to tell me something that's so obviously important 'isn't necessary for me to know'"." Twilight was relentless in her verbal assault.

Luna was in awe. The ferocious intelligence that Twilight possessed had been practically turned into a weapon in court, where she wielded it to shoot down attempts to circumvent the law or bleed the country dry of bits, but she had never torn into either of the goddess' like she was now. She was so… in control. Feelings that Luna thought she had long since repressed were suddenly pulled to the forefront of her mind, and she felt a powerful urge to give Twilight a hug, to make the purple mare smile… Luna shook her head, pushing the inappropriate thoughts away. Twilight Sparkle is my student. It is wrong of me to feel such emotions, she thought. The Moon Princess tore her eyes away to see her sister ruffling her wings irritably.

"Twilight, please just listen! Ponyville is in danger!" Celestia shouted in exasperation.

That got her attention. Twilight's eyes widened instantly, and her ears snapped forward to drink in the four words she never wanted to hear. Celestia hastily continued before she was interrupted again. "I know you're curious, but now is not the time nor the place. I need you to gather the guards and get to Ponyville NOW."

Twilight's mind was working furiously. "Under attack? But external relations are healthier than ever! Unless-" The Magister's eyes narrowed, her muscles tensing up in preparation. "the Everfree."

Luna nodded gravely. "We don't know any of the details, but yes, something is wreaking havoc in Ponyville as we speak." Twilight closed her eyes and reached deep inside herself. She felt for the lock. There. She unwound a restraint in her psyche, one of the many limiters she had placed on herself over the years. Immediately, the temperature in the throne room increased dramatically as power rippled along Twilight's fur and sparked along the length of her horn, much to the other occupants surprise.

"Twilight?! What-" Both princesses shouted.

"No time to explain! I need to get to Ponyville right away, we'll talk when I return!" Twilight divided her attention in order to cast multiple spells simultaneously; the forgotten books and equipment she retrieved from the labs, she threw into a summoned wormhole, sending them to a pocket dimension for later use. At the same time, she expanded her awareness, found the unicorn guards she assigned as leaders of their respective squads when she took on her responsibility as Magister Militum (alongside her numerous other ones, all of which combined into her singular title) and telepathically ordered them to get into formation out in front of the throne room. As she was doing all this, she quickly and precisely unwound the anti-teleport wards that protected her chambers, and then materialised inside. Books on healing and anti-venoms were frantically thrown into her null-space, before she teleported, remade the wards again in a heartbeat, and flashed back to the throne room doors… All of this done in the space of several seconds.  In her haste, she forgot to account for the time it would take for the guards to actually get to where she wanted them to be, so she simply teleported them all to her location. After waiting five more agonising seconds for them all to stop throwing up from the experience, she opened a portal to Ponyville that would allow them to cut their travel time down from half-a-day to ten minutes, a feat of  physics-bending arcane might that would have given Event Horizon himself a run for his money. The armoured stallions, rippling with muscle, armed with wing-blades and spears, took one glance at the ominous look on the Magister's face and promptly galloped straight into the magic gateway, closely followed by the purple mare herself.

The twin goddesses of ponykind simply sat and stared for a very long time, before the younger opened her mouth to speak.

"I get the feeling that she's a bit on edge." Luna stated, earning an exasperated sigh from her elder.

Applejack jolted from her slumber underneath one of her apple trees. Grumbling to herself, she lifted her hat off her face, perched it on her head and got to her hooves. "What in tarnayshun...?" Her ears swivelled forwards and backwards as she listened carefully for the noise she had heard. It was strange but it almost sounded like a bunch of cows mooing...

A shrill, blood-curdling wail tore through the air, closely followed by the crack of lightning and a bleating roar. The orange earth-pony's head snapped around to the source of the disturbance: the house.

"Applebloom." Biting back a whimper, she grabbed her trusty lasso in her mouth and bolted through her family orchard to help her sister.

Lion looked down at his prey contemptuously. They had found the ponies, rather young ones based on their size, cowering in a large empty building and tending to some cows. Goat was curious as to what she was doing with them; it seemed like they were collecting their milk in metal containers. Serpent glared at the animals and licked the air, revelling in the taste of their fear. Lion, meanwhile, had eyes only for the ponies. He peered closely at them one after the other: one was a light yellow, with a ribbon in her hair. Wingless and hornless, unlike the other two. The next one was trying desperately to look brave, orange with a purple mane, wings extended outwards in fright. Goat found the sight hilarious. The last one was even more interesting to Lion: a horned one, white with a pink mane. Serpent noted that Twilight Sparkle had a horn as well, but Goat sensed that this specimen had only a spark compared to the purple one's Sun. Serpent didn't care.

Food, he thought. He slowly uncoiled and moved over to the winged one, who squeaked pitifully. Lion and Goat kept their eyes on the other two as Serpent wound tight around the pony, crushing and strangling it's tiny neck-

Goat bleated in shock as a huge force slammed into them from behind, at the point where Serpent was attached. Serpent slackened and instinctively snapped back to repel the attacker. Lion turned to look, expecting a purple horned-pony, but was greeted with a mundane, orange one. Her eyes widened in terror as Lion regarded the new arrival, but she made no attempt to run. Goat blasted her with lightning, throwing back her out the structure with barely a thought, while Serpent  shot back and sank his teeth into the purple-haired pony, who was already suffering from his previous attack. The other ponies batted at Lion's face, who knocked them unconscious with a blow from his paw. Serpent was halfway through devouring his prey when the Chimera was wrapped around and constricted by a ring of rope, tossed expertly by the elder orange mare behind them. With incredible strength, she managed to pull them outside into the open air, where Lion tensed his muscles and snapped the rope into pieces. Goat blasted her with electricity, which she nimbly dodged, but Lion grabbed her in his jaws and tossed her into a tree, where she slumped to the ground. The Chimera went to finish the job, but Goat stopped them by bleated ecstatically as he detected a familiar violet brightness that had appeared in town. The Chimera turned and bounded towards the gathered buildings with incredible speed and gathered flame in their body. Twilight Sparkle will not win this time, for the Chimera is changed. It is evolved. It is the ultimate predator.