It had been four hours since Twilight and her friends had departed from the castle with Princess Celestia. It was a long trip to Paradise Estate, which wasn’t even in Equestria, but the group of friends weren’t bored. They were making the most of their time by playing games such as ‘I spy’, and by looking down at the amazing scenery beneath them after they left the Equestrian border.
“Wow! I’ve never been outside of Equestria before!” Fluttershy said excitedly, “I wonder what kind of animals there are out here.”
“I’ve only been up to the border myself,” Twilight said, “But according to my books, there are many exotic species that don’t exist in Equestria.”
“Wonder if there’re any apple orchards out here?” Applejack said. Rarity raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”
“Honestly, Applejack, your first time in a whole new land, and your first thoughts are on apples?”
“Yeah, so? Ah bet your first thoughts are on gems or fashion or somethin’.”
Rarity blushed and turned her head away. “O-Of course not! Unlike you, I don’t have a one-track mind. I was actually thinking about the culture out here.”
“Culture?” Applejack asked, “You mean there’re ponies livin’ out here?”
“Not ponies,” Twilight corrected, “But I think the zebra settlements should be somewhere around this area.”
“I wonder if they’re like Zecora?” Pinkie Pie said, “OOH! We should totally land and go visit some of them! Then we can have a pony-and-zebra-friendship party, and learn all about the zebras, and then surprise Zecora with our new knowledge when we get home!”
“We’re in too much of a hurry,” Celestia said, causing Pinkie’s ears to drop. “We must hurry, before Paradox makes his next move.”
Applejack put a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder, and tried to cheer her up. “C’mon now, we can have a party after we beat Paradox, right?”
Pinkie’s face immediately lit up, and her big, cheerful smile returned. “Eeyup!”
After another three hours, the group had finally reached the location of Paradise Estate. The area was protected by a powerful barrier, with a small group of Royal Guards standing guard and patrolling the area.
The chariot carrying the group passed through the barrier, and landed on the ground. Two guards rushed up to greet the Princess and her company. “Princess Celestia! We’ve received your letter, and have vacated the premises for you and your…Friends.”
Celestia jumped off of the chariot, and faced the guard addressing her. “Thank you. Do you think you could prepare some food for us? The trip was a lot longer than I had calculated.”
“Of course, ma’am! We’ll have it ready for you immediately!”
Celestia nodded, and waited until the guards were a good distance away from her before turning to Twilight and her friends. “We’ll eat, and then begin the search. But first, I should probably warn you, I haven’t actually received permission from the High Council to do this.”
“Sooo…What’s that mean?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It means that what we’re about to do here is illegal.” The group gasped in unison, but remained silent whilst Celestia continued. “That means that if any of you want out now, I’ll fully understand.”
The group shared a few glances with each other, before stepping forward and smiling at the Princess. “Well, we came this far, so we might as well go all the way!” Rainbow Dash said enthusiastically.
“Yeah! Sometimes it’s fun to bend the rules a little!” Pinkie said, receiving a worried look from some of her friends.
“As a lady, I should be opposed to this,” Rarity said, and then sighed, “But as a friend, I can’t sit back and let you do this all by yourself.”
“We’ll help ya, Princess! Ye’re our friend, after all!”
Fluttershy smiled and nodded silently, and Twilight thanked all of her friends. “Hey, Princess? Do you think I should include this in my next report?”
Celestia laughed, and then shook her head. “No, that’s quite alright, Twilight.”
The group shared a quick laugh, before being called over by the guards. They made their way to one of the tents to have a quick meal before beginning their search.
Rapier and Sabre were both Royal Guards with a very important duty: standing at the entrance to Canterlot Castle, staring off into the distance, and being very, very bored, all day. The two had to stand in one spot, watching all of the ponies passing by them, and making sure that anypony who doesn’t have permission to enter the castle is turned away.
And in a city like Canterlot, where the Royal Guard is everywhere, nothing exciting really ever happens, so there’s nothing on the streets to keep them entertained. All they really have to keep each other entertained is small talk, and that was hard when one of them was grumpy, and only ever spoke in one word sentences.
“Man, nothing ever happens around here! Why can’t I be sent off to somewhere like Detrot? Or Ponyville? That close to the Everfree forest, there’s gotta be something fun going on there every now and then.”
Sabre simply grunted in response, and Rapier sighed, another attempt at a conversation ruined. He was about to give up and just play with the rocks on the ground, until Sabre spoke up.
“Hey.” Rapier’s ears twitched, and he turned to face Sabre with a look of surprise on his face. Sabre was actually speaking? And not just that, but initiating a conversation!
“Yeah?”
“Hand me that picture of Paradox.”
Rapier’s face dropped, and he sighed. ‘Should’ve known it would be something work related.’ Rapier walked over to the nearby workstation that they had set up, and rummaged through all of the paperwork for the picture that was handed to them yesterday. “What d’ya want it for?”
Sabre didn’t answer, instead staring directly forward, narrowing his eyes at something in the distance. Rapier finally found the photo, and gave it to Sabre, who took it without a single word. “You’re welcome, partner,” Rapier said sarcastically, before turning to see what Sabre was staring so intently at. His jaw dropped, and he was at a complete loss for words.
“Halt!” Sabre shouted out, charging towards a pony in the crowd in front of him.
“Wait!” Rapier shouted out, grabbing a spear with his wing and following his partner.
Sabre and Rapier pushed through a small crowd of ponies, stopping just in front of a cloaked Unicorn, who was smiling at the two guards. Rapier urged the crowds to back away, but that only made them more eager to see what was about to happen.
“Paradox, you’re under arrest!” Sabre shouted, using his magic to draw his spear and pointing it directly at Paradox. “Come quietly, or we’ll take you by force!”
Paradox shrugged and raised both of his forehooves into the air. Sabre cautiously approached Paradox, paying careful attention to his horn, ready to act the moment he saw any magic passing through it.
Paradox grinned as he saw his followers – the Diamond Dogs – sneaking into the castle whilst everypony’s attention was drawn to him, and allowed his hooves to be shackled, and his horn to be bound by an anti-magic ring.
Sabre and Rapier looked at each other sceptically, but decided not to question it. They figured he must have seen that he couldn’t beat Celestia, and had come to surrender, before he made his crimes worse.
“Let’s go. Princess Celestia’s out of town right now, but you can wait in the dungeon until she returns,” Rapier said, glaring at Paradox. The three started moving, with Sabre in front, Paradox in the middle, and Rapier behind. Sabre asked a couple of guards patrolling the streets to cover for them whilst they escorted their prisoner to the dungeon, and the three ponies made their way towards the castle.
‘Celestia’s out of town?’ Paradox thought to himself, ‘Well, that certainly does make things easier for me. It means I won’t have to worry about distracting her for long enough. But it does make me wonder…Where could she have possibly gone?’
The three ponies walked through the castle in absolute silence. The servants and guards that they passed along the way stopped to stare at the prisoner for a moment, before returning to their duties.
Finally, the silence was once again too much for Rapier to take, and since Sabre was most likely unwilling to speak, he decided to try talking to Paradox. ‘Might as well get an early start on the questioning,’ he thought to himself. “So,” Rapier began, “What gives? You came to Canterlot simply to give up? What happened? Did you realise that the Princess is no pushover?”
Paradox laughed for a few seconds, and then turned his head to look at Rapier, and also, to see down the corridor behind them. ‘No ponies in front or behind. This is as good a place as any,’ he thought to himself as he turned his head back to face in front of him. He puckered his lips, and whistled at a frequency that ponies couldn’t hear. Ponies couldn’t, but dogs could.
“Nah, I haven’t given up yet,” Paradox said, turning back to face Rapier. “Y’see, I’m here to kidnap Luna, so that Celestia won’t able to touch me.”
Sabre scoffed, and Rapier shot Paradox a rage filled glare. “Y’know, treason attempts are usually more successful when you don’t turn yourself in to the enemy.”
Paradox shrugged, and once more turned to face in front of him. After a few more seconds of walking, the group was suddenly ambushed by three creatures that shout out from a nearby janitor’s closet. Sabre raised his spear to defend himself, but whilst he was busy focusing on one of these creatures, the other two ran past and made their way towards Paradox.
Rapier watched as one of the two creatures produced a key. Rapier recognised it as the key that Sabre was holding earlier. The one that could unlock Paradox’s magical restraint. The two creatures reached Paradox, and took off the ring around his horn. “Crap!” Rapier shouted as he charged forwards, but was quickly knocked back by Paradox’s magic. Rapier felt his head bang against the wall behind him, and struggled to stay conscious as he watched Sabre charge at Paradox, raising his spear, ready to kill the criminal pony.
“Too slow,” Paradox said as he nimbly dodged Sabre’s attack, and then, using his magic, drew the sword that one of the three creatures was carrying for him, and used it to cut Sabre’s head clean off. “Now, let’s go visit Luna,” Paradox said, before turning to face his companions. “There’s been a slight change of plans. You no longer need to distract Celestia. But I would like you to look something up for me.”
Rapier tried to stand up, but his head was hurting too much, and it was all he could do to just stay awake and watch the scene before him unfold. Paradox relayed some orders to his accomplices, but he couldn’t hear them, and before he could get up to try to stop them, the entire world went black as he finally lost consciousness.
“Wow, this…Isn’t what I was expecting,” Twilight said as she entered the Paradise Estate. “It’s pretty big…Where should we start?”
“We’ll divide our efforts,” Celestia responded, “I’ll check upstairs with Fluttershy and Rarity. The rest of you search downstairs.” Celestia turned her attention to Rainbow Dash. “Make sure to check absolutely everything. Including the high-up areas.”
Rainbow Dash saluted. “Leave it to me!” Once Celestia’s group had left for the upstairs area, Rainbow Dash turned her attention to Twilight. “So, where should we check first?”
Twilight shrugged, and moved down the hallway towards one of the doors. “Well, if there’s a library or a study of some kind, that’d be a good place to start looking.”
“What’re we lookin’ for again?” Applejack asked, checking a door on the side of the hallway opposite Twilight.
“Anything about the Ancient Tomb, or anything written by Moondancer,” Twilight answered, opening another door and seeing what appeared to be a study inside. “Ok! This looks like a good place to start! I’ll go through the books in here. You guys let me know if you find anything elsewhere.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie Pie answered, hoping cheerfully down the hallway.
Celestia placed another book back onto the shelf, after quickly scanning through it with her magic. She was looking for specific keywords in any of the books upstairs, but so far, had found nothing. “I suppose such an important document might be hidden somewhere…But it’s not like I can just start tearing apart a historic monument. That would definitely be crossing the line.”
Celestia heard a scream from another upstairs room, and quickly dropped the book that she was carrying to find out what had happened. She rushed over to the room where she had heard the screaming coming from, and saw Rarity standing on her hind legs, her back leaning against the wall behind her, as she breathed in and out very heavily. “What happened?” Celestia asked, looking charging magic into her horn.
“THAT!” Rarity shouted pointing a hoof towards the opposite end of the room.
Celestia turned to look at what Rarity was pointing at, and saw a small group of spiders in a cobwebbed area in the corner of the room. “That’s it?” Celestia, chuckling slightly at Rarity’s overly dramatic reaction. “How about you search somewhere else? I’ll search this room instead.”
Rarity was more than happy to take the Princess up on that offer, and sped off to another room with a quick “thank you”.
Celestia turned to cobwebs, and let out another soft chuckle. “Honestly, she’s just like Blueblood. Can’t stand the sight of spiders one…Bit?” Celestia noticed something strange about the webbed area, but couldn’t put her hoof on it. She approached it, and the strange feeling became even clearer. “This is an illusion,” she said to herself, her horn lighting up as she tried to seek out the source of the illusion.
She turned her attention towards the mirror on the wall next to her. “There?” she asked herself, walking closer to the mirror. She reached out with her hooves and took down the mirror, revealing a magic circle on the other side. “This circle…It’s creating an illusion. This may be just what I was looking for.”
Celestia unleashed a small beam of magic at the circle, erasing it from the wall. As she did so, she felt the illusion in the room disappear. She turned to the cobwebbed wall, and her eyes widened as she saw the wall moving back, slowly revealing a trapdoor on the floor.
Celestia wandered over to the trapdoor, and opened it with her magic. Underneath was a ladder that seemed to lead pretty far down. “Yes, this certainly seems suspicious.”
Celestia and Twilight reached the bottom of the ladder, leaving the others at the top until they could confirm that it was safe. The two ponies found a huge, dusty study at the bottom of the ladder. There was a desk in the centre, which was worn down and falling apart, and two bookcases completely filled with books.
“Twilight, you go back up and let the others know that it’s safe,” Celestia said, and Twilight nodded as she began to climb back up the ladder. Celestia moved over to the desk, and pulled open a few drawers. Inside, she found quills, inkpots, blank pieces of parchment, and a few pages with writing on them. They seemed to be research notes of some kind, but they were in a completely random order, making it hard to read them properly.
“Whoa!” Celestia turned around to see Rainbow Dash landing at the bottom of the ladder, apparently having flown down instead of climbing. “This is just like something out of Daring Do! Awesome!”
Celestia chuckled, and had to agree with Rainbow Dash. Once the rest of the group had climbed down the ladder, Celestia handed the pages that she had discovered to Twilight. “Could I ask you six to try to piece this together in the right order for me?” she asked, before turning her attention to the bookcases behind her. “I’ll look through those books to see what I can find.”
Twilight and her friends nodded, though Applejack and Rainbow Dash were a little more reluctant, and scattered the pages on the floor, gathering around them to try and piece them together. A task that would prove very annoying, considering the pages had writing on both sides.
Meanwhile, Celestia walked over to the bookcases, and once again began to use her magic to scan through the books one by one. Whilst the first two yielded no result, the third one seemed to contain information on the Ancient Tomb. Although, and quick read-through revealed nothing that Luna hadn’t already uncovered.
The fourth book contained information on Moondancer’s favourite foods, her hobbies, and other information that was useless to the Princess, and it wasn’t until the seventeenth book that Celestia had another hit. This time, there was actually something there that she could use.
Celestia read through a particular passage in the book, and came across something new. Something that she had never heard of before. “Pandora’s Box?” she asked herself out loud.
From my research into the Ancient Tomb, I have concluded that the tomb itself was not built by any creatures, but instead, has always been there, ever since the world began. Maybe even before then, though I suppose that doesn’t really make much sense. The tomb itself has always been, but the doorway that lies inside was built by an advanced civilization, and sealed away with powerful magic.
I believe this civilization to be those legendary creatures that my uncle spent his entire life searching for. The ‘Alicorns’ – Ponies with control over magic, the skies, and the land.
Celestia skimmed over a few pages, and then another passage caught her eye.
Megan came back from the Ancient Tomb with only Surprise today. When I asked her what had happened, they told me that the group was attacked by three large pony-like creatures in black cloaks. They descended from the sky, and then used magic to ambush them, and stole the Rainbow of Light.
“The Rainbow of Light?” Celestia asked herself. She turned back to make sure that the others hadn’t heard her, and then turned her attention towards the book. ‘The Rainbow of Light was the precursor form of the Elements of Harmony. The Elders told me and Luna that the Rainbow of Light was taken from the ponies because they misused it…’
Celestia flicked through the pages, but found nothing more of particular interest. The next book of interest was the twenty-eighth one. Celestia opened it, took a look inside, and then, after a few minutes of reading, gasped rather audibly, dropping the book the ground.
Twilight heard this, and turned away from her current project to see if her mentor was alright. “Princess? What’s wrong?” The rest of the group also turned to face Celestia, but it wasn’t until a few minutes had passed that Celestia had actually started to move again.
“Twilight, pack up the pages in whatever order you have them in right now,” Celestia said, walking over to the desk as quickly as she could. She produced a piece of parchment from the desk, and opened one of the inkpots, using her magic to make whatever ink was still left useable once more. “We need to return to Canterlot immediately. Shining Armour is in danger.”
Twilight and her friends gasped, and quickly began gathering the pages together, taking care not to mess up what progress they had currently made so far. “What do you mean? Why would my brother be in danger? He’s a Captain of the Royal Guard.”
“Paradox is after Unicorns with lots of raw magic. Which means he’ll be specifically going after ponies like you and Shining Armour.” Celestia finished writing her letter, and sent it off with her magic. “I have faith in Shining Armour’s abilities, but if Paradox specifically targets him, things could turn out very bad.”
Once the pages were packed up, and Celestia had gathered all of the books that she hadn’t yet checked, the group began to ascend the ladder back up to the top.
Luna awoke to the sounds of shouting and screaming outside her room. She lazily stretched her limbs, let out a loud yawn, and then turned her head to face her clock. It was not yet time for her to get up and raise the moon. She covered her head with her pillow, and tried to go back to sleep, when the realisation that ponies were shouting and screaming in the castle hit her.
“…Wait. We should probably go and check that out,” Luna said, before yawning loudly once more, and then rising to her hooves. She rubbed her eyes, and slowly made her way to her bedroom door, completely forgetting to fix up her mane and tail, like her sister had always told her to do whenever she woke up.
She began to open the door slowly, but stopped when she felt a sinister presence on the other side. Suddenly, something was thrown into her room, and before she could react, a powerful, blinding light caused her to close her eyes tight.
Paradox took this chance to slam the door open, knocking Luna down onto the floor as it smacked her face hard, and then quickly pinned Luna to the ground with his magic. Luna tried to force him off with her own magic, but Paradox had already prepared some Alicorn charms that would suppress her magic, and stuck them to her horn before she could do anything to stop him.
“So this is Princess Luna, eh? I must say, you really do remind me a lot of myself, back when I was a colt.” Paradox wanted to laugh, but his voice was bitter, and he could only scowl at the helpless Alicorn struggling on the floor beneath him. “How pathetic. To think that you’re related to Celestia…And her sister, no less.”
“Villain! What is thine purpose here!? Hath thou cometh to assassinate us and our sister!?”
Paradox raised an eyebrow at the Princess’ strange way of speaking, but decided not to question it. “Don’t worry, Luna. You won’t be killed yet.” Paradox knelt down slowly, and applied another Alicorn charm to Luna’s forehead. “After all, a dead hostage doesn’t work as well as a living one.”
“You…Scoundrel…” Luna said slowly, weakening as she slowly drifted off into sleep. Paradox removed the charm from her forehead, and then levitated the sleeping Princess onto his back.
“Oof! She’s heavier than she looks,” he said to himself.
“Oof! Wow, Paradox, you’re heavier than you look! It must be all that junk food. Maybe you should go on a diet.”
“But I don’t eat that much, mom! Besides, you’re the one who sneaks cake from the kitchen every night!”
“…You saw that? Um…How about we keep that our little secret, ok?”
“Ok!”
Paradox allowed a small smile to cross his lips, before shaking it off completely, and then turning his head to look at Luna. “You know…Your sister used to sneak cake from the kitchen, every single night.” He grinned as he began to carry Luna outside of her room. “I wonder if she still does that?”
A flash of light escaped Luna’s horn, and a scroll shot forth, landing in front of Paradox. He lifted it up, read over it, and began to laugh maniacally. “Oh, Celestia. You’re making this so easy for me.” He burned the scroll with a simple fire spell, and then made his way through the castle, fighting off Royal Guards as he made his escape. ‘Next stop will be Manehatten then.’