The place where Pride was currently at couldn’t really be defined as a ‘room’ as it was not a fixed Pont in space or was it accessible trough a door or by any conventional means, to define the exact nature of this place every in words would be next to impossible, yet if you had to the most simple of definitions would be a “God shaped hole” that existed by pushing the rest of reality outwards, such was the place where Pride sought audience with his lord.
Pride was on his knees trembling in fear, he knew he had failed his mission and in doing so he had lost the element of surprise and alerted the Princesses of their existence , a secret that his master had concealed for millennia and would now be on their guard. His only hope was that his master would consider the information he brought to be valuable enough to compensate for his failure, raising his head, he prepared for he worst.
“My Lord, I bring you news.” Just as the words left his lips a powerfully force slammed him into the ground least I got him partially buried in a crater, a throaty growl was all that escaped his mouth for the force that was falling upon his was so strong he couldn’t even scream, when the assault ended Pride took a deep heaving breath and hastily began making his excuses before he was further punished.
“My Lord I know I have failed you but I bring you a warning, a new threat to your reign has appeared and has sided with Celestia.” When no further attack came Pride took it as a sign to keep talking. “I had successfully overpowered the princesses and the Elements of Harmony and was about to strike them down when an unknown pony rose in rebellion to your divine will, he wore a golden armor and stood at Celestia’s side, and unlike anypony else he managed to stand up to me and put up an actual fight, I was of course winning when a second one such pony interfered to aid the first one leading me to belive that there may be more. I deemed it imperative that you should be informed of such a development.”
For what seemed an eternity and yet might have been fractions of a second all stood still, Pride not feeling in the clear yet ransacked his memories for something, anything hat might shift the focus away from him. “They called themselves “saints” at the service ice of the goddess “Athena”.” That had done it, suddenly the “room” in the shape of a gods shifted and turned into the shape of an enraged God, Pride’s only saving grace was that he had vanished completely from his maters mind.
~~~~~
Mu of Aries had arrived to Equestria much like Aioria had, that is to say plummeting to the ground in a ball of golden fire at supersonic speed, after recovering and coming to terms with his new situation and new form (meditation does wonders to keep away panic attacks) he decided to move on and explore, by the second day of his arrival he had come across a small little town inhabited by ponies much like himself, he was about to enter said town however his finely tuned sixth sense alerted him that there was something wrong with these ponies, very wrong, so using his abilities he infiltrated the town without being detected to investigate further into these ponies, he learned many things about this world and the locals, some of their names, their doctrine of equality and about their cutie marks, or lack thereof for all the town inhabitants bared the same mark on their flanks, an “equal” sign (his own mark he discovered was a blue hammer at mid-strike as well as some star shaped sparks flying out from the strike). From what he had gathered all the ponies had “renounced” their cutie marks in the name of “equality” and also all said cutie marks were kept in a secure vault somewhere.
Seeking more information, Mu had found their leader, a purple unicorn called Starlight Glimmer, when he found her he got an immediate bad feeling about her, she didn’t feel like the rest of the ponies in town, they felt empty somehow, but no her, she felt powerful, not at all like the others, this was certainly worth a closer look.
Later that night while Mu was peeping investigating Starlight, in her room, at night, without her knowledge, he saw her as she really was without anything on as she stepped out of the bath, now all he needed to do was find the vault.
Fortunately for him the very next day the most unexpected visitors came to investigate the town, a group of 7 ponies consisting of 6 females of various shapes and colors, one particularly sporting both wings and a horn as well as a powerful cosmo, and beside them a tiny, quadrupled, furry, fully armored saint of Leo, Mu had to choke down a laugh from how adorable he was, but he would never let him know though, he knew he ranked rather highly in the list of the most handsome/pretty saints and that probably translated into cuteness in pony form, regardless, Mu decided not to reveal himself just yet and shadow them to see what they came here for, he was startled when the pink one nearly pinpointed him several times, but whenever she was about to, something else caught her attention and she would frown at it.
All the secrecy finally bared it’s fruit when they managed to get Starlight to guide them to the vault, the vault itself was a wonder to behold, given the time Mu would have very much liked to study it, and then there was the staff, a powerful tool without but the ominous feeling it gave out took away any desire to fiddle with that one.
Shortly after Starlight sprang an ambush, Mu was surprised when the winged unicorn teleported a short distance, he had seen some rudimentary telekinesis but this was surprising, the purple one had caught his attention.
Starlight caught the purple pony with a beam from the staff, just as Much was about to jump into the fray she underwent a transformation both physical and on her cosmo witch reached Godlike intensity if only for a short moment.
Calmly preparing a strategy Mu discreetly gathered his cosmo and called for an old friend, after all if Aioria was wearing get his golden cloth it stood to reason that he could do the same, behind the cover of Mu’s technique the cloth of Aries materialized in its statue form and promptly enveloped Mu, now armored and unnoticed Mu prepared to even up the playing field.
~~~~~
Starlight Glimmer was not having a good day, firstly her ploy to turn an alicorn princess to her side backfired spectacularly when said princess managed to overpower the staff wielded by her and negate its effect, and now, before she could close in and take a second shot, a second Royal Guard with weird armor appeared and snuck up on her. “Who’s are you!?” She demanded.
“I am the golden saint of Aries, you may call me… Stardust.” Mu said having picked up on the pony name structure and also hearing Aioria’s new pseudonym while eavesdropping earlier, so he decided to follow the trend.
Starlight Glimmer glared at him, Aioria’s companions looked at him with awe, the townsponies looked at him with those creepy smiles and finally Aioria looked at him with an expression that said “Really?”
“It doesn’t matter” Starlight said dismissively at the new arrival. “We still have you surrounded and I have the staff, we have all the advantages.” Starlight regained her confidence and composure.
“Ah! But those are not all the advantages takes you have now are they?” Mu said giving Starlight a knowing get smile.
“What are you talking about?” Starlight asked in mild confusion.
“Well you see, I have been observing your little town for some time now and I have come across something very interesting about you.” Starlight looked shocked, the possibility that somepony could roam around do her town undetected was unthinkable, or else who knows what they could stumble upon, “He must be lying “ she thought.
It was around this time that Twilight woke from her overexertion and began taking in her surroundings, she immediately recognized her friends gathered protectively around her as well as Lightning Bolt in front of the group, then she noticed the new arrival, a white unicorn with a purple mane in a golden armor. “Who’s that?” She tiredly asked.
“Twilight!” Chorused her friends.
“Simmer down shugarcube, ya cain’t go runnin around just yet.” Applejack told her saying she and Fluttershy helped her stand.
“Yeah OK, but who is he?” She repeated he question as she shook off the grogginess off her head.
“That’s Stardust, one of Lightning’s friends and he came to help us kick flank, right Lightning?” Rainbow excitedly explained.
“Err… right” Aioria was still taken aback by Muss appearance and subsequent introduction.
He must be really good at magic Twilight, he made this mirror thingy that made him invisible and I think he’s been following us around but immediately not entirely sure.” Pinkie Pie supplemented.
Twilight couldn’t believe it, to cast an invisibility spell would be difficult enough, but to even h8de from pinker, nopony had ever been able to hide from her.
Starlight got tired of waiting and swung her staff at Mu shooting an unmarking beam at him, but Mu disappeared in a flash letting the beam strike only air.
“Teleportation! But how!?” Twilight yelled in alarm now fully awakened, only very few unicorns were able to teleport, it was a master level spell that required power knowledge and control on great amounts to even think of pulling them off.
“He is the most powerful master of mental abilities among all of Athena’s saints, he could easily teleport to the other side of the world and back if he really wanted to.”
Twilight said jaw hung unhinged, such a scale was unthinkable, maybe the princesses could do it or herself if she gave it her all, she would have to investigate this Stardust, thoroughly.
Starlight Glimmer kept firing unmarking beams left and right at Mu who deftly teleported over and over to avoid every beam, she was growing increasingly frustrated at her inability to hit him as well as his incessant taunting abut her secret, finally reaching her breaking point.
“Enough! What is it!? What do you know about me!?”
“I know your lying” He said as he discretely gathered water from the cave with his telekinesis and used it to splash her hindquarters with it, Starlight jumped in surprise as the cold water made contact with her body and unconsciously turned around to defend against her perceived threat unknowingly showing all ponies present the proof of her deception.
A collective gasp was the first indication she had that something was wrong, turning around quickly she was met a with the incredulous stares of her followers witch were concentrated around her flanks, following heir gazes she looked at herself and promptly entered a state of panic at what she saw.
“Starlight, you have your cutie mark!” Double Diamond, Starlight’s assistant said shocked at what he was seeing, Starlight Glimmer who preached equality trough the rejection of one’s cutie mark had unbeknownst to anypony in fact kept her cutie mark.
“What’s the meaning of this Starlight?”
“Aren’t we all supposed to be equal?
“I want my cutie mark back!”
The rebellious voices began to spread at the revelation that Starlight had kept her cutie mark along with her special talent, in a panic Starlight attempted to calm her ponies. “W-wait, you don’t understand, I need my special talents to spread equality and true friendship to all of Equestria.”
“Equality for example ery pony, except for you.” Twilight accused. “Everypony has unique talent and gifts, and when we share them with-.”
“QUIET!!” Starlight roared interrupting Twilight. “What do you know about friendship, I gave the these ponies true Friendship, without special talents nopony is better than any other, there is no reason to fight, no reason to cry, when every pony is equal there is no need for ENVY!!”
Those last words were laced with a spike on Starlight’s cosmo as if they were a password unlocking something wining her, something powerful, something dangerous.
“Having special talents only leads to misery, broken friendships and loss, so I will remove them, I will take away all cutie marks so they can never take anything away from me again!!” As Starlight kept talking she started emanating a black cosmo witch grew larger by he second quickly enveloping her whole body like a shroud of darkness.
The black cocoon pulsed with energy ,and burst like an oily bubble revealing a black armored pony that once was Starlight Glimmer, her armor was less bulky and more stylized than the one Aioria saw Pride wearing, there were bracers on her four legs and her breastplate seemed too thin to offer any real protection, but he remembered that this was a supposedly unbreakable armor bestowed by a god, the shoulder pads were very elongated angled slightly downwards and the tiara on her head enveloped her horn like a ring. Starlight’s own appearance had suffered a drastic shift as well, her mane was now disheveled and spiky, her highlight now raced across her mane like a lightning bolt, her confident eyes and smug smile were gone now replaced with wild maniac eyes and a face-splitting grin on her lips that promised pain and suffering instead of equality and friendship.
“So this is your true face Starlight, or should I call you Envy?” Aioria said stepping forward as to draw attention to himself and away from his charges. Mu was doing the same approaching from the other side ready for battle.
“That’s right, I am Starlight Glimmer bearer of the vice of Envy, one of the seven Great Vices at the service of Cronos.” Envy introduced herself to the two golden warriors.
“Did she say Cronos?” Mu asked his fellow saint.
“I’ll explain later, first we must deal with his.” Aioria said as he fell into a battle stance.