Book 1: Equestria Burning
Chapter 7
Strange flashes of light flashed across the dully lit sky as Twilight raced to Princess Celestia's aid. She could feel the immensity of the magical power being unleashed ahead, almost painfully intense even at this distance. She ran on, struggling to keep her group together, with Rainbow constantly pulling ahead, and with Fluttershy and Pinkie constantly falling behind... Fluttershy apparently out of her normal timidity, but Pinkie seemed to be almost limping. Pinchy knee... Twilight thought, something scary is about to happen... She looked ahead. The flashes were brighter and closer, and were they higher up? Well, now we know what that was all about.
The six friends crested one last hill, and before them sprawled Canterlot's quarantine burial grounds. Many of the corpses had obviously been desecrated... used as some kind of sick playthings... but the grounds were devoid of any sign of life, leaving Twilight confused for a moment. She was sure this was where the message said to go... and she was sure this was where the flashes and magical discharges were coming from...
Suddenly, a bright flash from above lit up the scene. A wave of magic resembling twinkling starlight was dissipating away from an invisible shield around... a draconequus! Even from the ground, Twilight could tell this wasn't Discord... it – she – looked distinctly different, despite the same general shape. It seemed to notice the newly arrived ponies, and simply froze in the air, chanting and waving arms around... seeming to be preparing for a very complicated spell.
Twilight shouted out a warning, “Princess, look out!”
Celestia didn't seem to notice. She, too, had an intense look of concentration on her face as she hovered in midair. Princess Luna had been angling behind the draconequus, looking to land a sneak attack from the back, she turned though, at Twilight's call, to see what was the matter... just at the wrong time.
Celestia's tightly-channeled solar flare tore through the sky, roaring with tightly contained, unfathomable power. It followed a curving path, down from the sun, directly at the draconequus. The draconequus, who had seemed to be engrossed in casting a spell, suddenly looked up, and rather than giving the flare the fear it was due, she only gave a little smirk...
With a flash, the draconequus teleported herself out of the path of the beam of solar fire... leaving it now headed directly for a distracted Princess Luna.
Luna was not a pony to be trifled with. Thousands of years of experience and some of the most powerful magic in the world saw to that. Casting aside the star-powered attack she had been preparing, she quickly dodged to the side, calling on the power of the moon for the strongest shield she could muster.
Her intended target now teleported away, Celestia's heart skipped a beat as she suddenly noticed who was in her flare's path. Urgently, she veered the deadly beam off the the side.
Twilight watched from the ground in stunned horror as Celestia's beam of solar energy veered to the side... the same side that the princess of the night had dodged toward. Another savagely bright flash lit up the sky as Twilight saw the tightly focused flare cut through Luna's shield.
Caught in the beam, Luna was slammed to the ground, landing within Twilight's view. Her starry mane and tail were gone, along with most of her fur, and even a lot of skin. Her sleek black armor was glowing red and slowly melting around her. Her mangled face showed only a tight cringe of pain, as wisps of smoke rose from the new crater she made upon landing.
Twilight and her friends stared in silent shock, disbelief and horror on their faces. A piercing cry tore through the sky, “LUNA!” as Celestia went into a steep dive, blind to all else but her suffering sister.
Still high in the sky, Celestia's plummeting form came to a sudden stop and slightly reversed, as a rapidly rising draconequus impacted from below.
Twilight looked on helplessly as the two fell down towards the ground, much more slowly this time. The draconequus's mouth was clamped over the princess's face – the only gap in her armor – locked on tightly, with an eagle claw gripped tightly on the alicorn's horn and a tail wrapped around her wings.
As the two entwined combatants fell, Celestia struggled. First, her horn lit up with a dazzlingly light glow, but the glow seemed to only travel down the draconequus's claw and dissipate. The pony princess struggled physically, but could find no leverage, and the draconequus continued to stay latched on doggedly.
The two hit the ground with a thud, a small cloud of dust rising from the impact. Twilight was already running to help, horn aglow and friends close behind. As she approached, and the dust cleared though, she saw what she knew would haunt her for many years to come. The draconequus was still latched on to her mentor, the alicorn's entire face trapped in the creature's mouth. As Twilight's first magical attacks reflected harmlessly off of a shield around the two, the princess of the sun gave a few final twitches, and then lay still.
Twilight's world began to spin around her... no, that wasn't it... it was only the shadows spinning... Twilight looked up; the sun was zooming around the sky, taking a wide spiraling path from its zenith down to the horizon... Which could only mean... Her teacher, her mentor, the princess of the sun and ruler of all Equestria... was dead. Twilight's stunned horror lasted only a moment. This had to be stopped, but how?
Princess Luna rose shuddering from her crater nearby with a groan, attracting attention both from Twilight's group and from the draconequus. Her armor had cooled and solidified in a badly distorted shape, and she herself looked as though she should hardly be alive, much less standing, shaky with rage and pain. The sun now behind the horizon, the sky began to look much like a normal night sky, with a full moon high overhead.
“TIA!” Luna cried out blindly, “Tia, where are you?” She received only a sickeningly mirthful laugh in return.
Luna's eyes were long gone, but began to glow nonetheless, and she shouted out, in a surprisingly strong voice, “You will pay for this vile beast! Show yourself!”
The draconequus rose from her fresh kill, and responded, “Oh, come now, I much prefer the name 'Pestilence'. I may be vile, but I do like to think of myself as above the beasts.” Quickly, she dodged to the side.
One of the stars in the sky suddenly changed from a twinkling point to laser-like beam, vaporizing a large chunk of ground, and several deceased ponies. Celestia's armor still protected her body, which now lay at the bottom of a shallow crater, missing most of its wings and face, which were unprotected.
“I do so love the new look, Luna my dear,” Pestilence taunted, “No fur, no tail to hide the naughty bits... very risqué!”
Another shaft of starlight shot down and annihilated the area where the voice had come from... Which had only been a pony corpse animated by the draconequus's magical puppet strings from above.
Grinning at her blind target, Pestilence dove down silently, dropping like a rock – directly towards Luna's now unprotected neck.
At the point of impact, a cracking sound brought horror anew to the six ponies watching. As Pestilence rose from her second alicorn kill of the day, the moon rolled down from the sky, seeming to land on the southern horizon and stick there. The stars all began to slough off from the sky in different directions, like raindrops running down a window.
Twilight could scarcely breath at this point. This had to be a bad dream or a warning or something... it couldn't be real. It couldn't be real.
As she Twilight stared on in denial, Rainbow Dash was the first to respond, “The elements! Come on! We've got to get to the elements!”
This roused the group to action, and they began running back toward Canterlot, to the hall where the elements were kept... Only to have their path blocked by the bulk of the draconequus. This close, the smell of her was overpowering, cloyingly sweet, with a distinct undertone of decay. “I can't let you do that darlings,” Pestilence intoned sweetly.
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