Celestia, eternal diarch of day, was sitting on her throne listening to her educational advisor on ways to increase the observational skills of all ponies. In recent years it had come to her attention that the citizens of Equestria weren’t that observant or capable of coming up with creative solutions to problems. Just recently at the Royal Wedding, not a single pony had realized that princess Cadance had been replaced by the changeling queen; despite the fact that her personality had changed as well as her magical aura from pink to a neon green. And while she had hired this pony to research and find a solution to this problem, she just couldn’t keep her attention focused on him. There had been a magical energy she had been sensing since she had raised the sun that morning. She couldn’t find where it was coming from; only that it seemed to feel oily and slippery and was everywhere.
She had been fighting to keep her wings at her sides all day, wanting to take flight and keep an eye on her citizens, but she had to have faith that they could look after themselves, that was after all what she had spent so much time doing. Celestia would only step up if and only if her ponies had tried everything they could and failed. She had been the one to stop her sister Luna when she had become NightMare Moon over 1000 years ago because nopony else could stop an alicorn bent on bringing about eternal night. Celestia had been forced to banish her sister and wait for new element bearers to appear in order to save Luna.
Celestia was an alicorn, possessing the abilities of all three pony races and responsible for raising and lowering the sun, while her sister did the same with the moon. She looked down at the green stallion at the bottom of the steps to her throne trying to pay attention to what he had to say. But, after a few minutes of this she looked back out of the stained glass windows to the balcony that she would use to look out onto Ponyville where her student was staying while finishing her studies. She cleared her throat and the stallion stopped speaking. “Sorry,” She spoke with a regal voice that most rulers would kill for, “but can we finish this another day Gentle Breeze? My mind is focused on other things right now.”
“Certainly, your Majesty.” The pegasus scholar stated as he bowed and exited the throne room, never leaving the red carpet path that went from the throne to the doors and which covered the white marble floors.
When the doors closed behind the departing advisor she got up and walked to her balcony. Her golden shoes clicked on the tile floor as she walked. They, along with her golden necklace and crown with a purple gem centered on each that matched the deep purple of her eyes, were her regalia and part of the job of princess. She let the sun warm her pearlescent white coat making sure that it hit her cutie mark of the sun and her flowing teal, purple, and rose pastel mane. She sat down and just breathed, looking out at Ponyville. She closed her eyes and attempted to find the source of the slithering energy once again. She heard metal horseshoes approach her; she knew it had to be one of her royal guards coming to check on her. She opened her eyes and peered down at the guard, he was, like all ponies, half her size. He had a white coat and two tone blue mane like most of her guards along with the golden armor that they were required to wear while on duty.
“Are you alright your Majesty?” He sounded like he was just asking for a status update, but Celestia knew better. She had been around ponies for over 2000 years and she could hear the worry in his voice. She knew her ponies viewed her as a deity, and in a sense, that was true. She could do almost anything she wanted with her magic and was nearly immortal, but never cared if she was worshipped, all she wanted was to watch out for her ponies. That was why when Discord had started torturing her ponies she had come out of seclusion to defeat him. She just hadn’t been able to leave and wanted to watch over her ponies and make sure they flourished.
“I am alright, there is just a current of change to the air and I want to figure out what it means.” She responded, still thinking and feeling out the nascent energy.
“Should I go get the element bearers?” the guard asked, ready to burst out of the room without hesitation. Celestia just smiled, they were so eager to do what was right, but they rarely thought it through.
“Not yet.” The sun goddess replied. “We don’t know if this energy is malevolent or where it will emerge. There is no need to disturb their lives on a suspicion.” She knew the six bearers of the elements, and each one had a job and a life, including her student Twilight Sparkle. “We will just wait…” Celestia trailed off. She sensed the magic congealing and forming. It was headed towards Ponyville, moving like something was pulling the streams of it together. It was the opposite of what smoke did in the wind.
The guard saw Celestia stiffen, it was a very slight thing but years guarding the princess had led him to know her body language very well. He prepared his wings to take flight in a moment’s notice.
She continued to feel out the power, trying to figure out what it was and come up with a strategy for how to defeat it. She could tell that whatever it was, it was powerful, as in world rending powerful. She then analyzed how the spell was being weaved together, how it was formed, and what its purpose was. Summon, Ancient, Dark. Her eyes shot open. She turned to the guard who was at the ready for any order. “Go to my sister quickly. Tell her there is an Old One being summoned in Ponyville. Tell her to orbit the town while I look around, and if anything happens, she is to do what she views as best.” The guard took to the air and flew up from the balcony toward the tower of the castle where Luna would be resting until they switched for the evening.
As she spread her wings, she felt the energy start to knot and twist, it was clashing and counteracting itself. Whoever was in charge of this spell had failed at some point. As bad as things were, Celestia knew this could be worse, it was random, and there was no way to predict what the spell would do when it finally released all of that built up magic. She flapped her wings and slowly raised herself off the balcony just as she saw a beam of light shoot into the sky from the far end of Ponyville. She nearly dropped out of the air in shock as she felt the dark energy all but vanish in an instant; but that was nothing compared to the reverberations of the leyline as magic was temporarily forced away from the epicenter.
She started to fly as fast as she could to Ponyville, using her magic to cut the air in front of her, lowering the wind resistance and allowing her to move faster. She couldn’t think of why any inexperienced unicorn would ever cast directly over a leyline. Leylines were massive conduits of magic that would circle a planet. But, all unicorns were taught from an early age that that much power was hard to control and could cause a magical rebound or overload if the spell wasn’t pulled off perfectly. If the spell failed it could cause the energy to be forced back into the leyline, causing it to fluctuate, causing an explosion and for magic within the path to stop function or be harder to cast.
As she soared over Ponyville she saw what was left of a house. All she could see was the foundation and the bottom few inches of what was left of the walls. As she landed in front of the decimated building she saw that in a few spots there were still fires burning. Celestia knew it had to have been a massive explosion. She could see that some of the remains were still smoldering, the explosion must have used up all of the oxygen in the area for long enough for the remains to cool some or the whole thing would have still been on fire, and fire needed oxygen to burn. In the middle of the living room she saw something shimmering.
Celestia stepped up to what should have been the door, she had noticed something shimmering and she wanted to take a closer look. As she stepped over the threshold though she heard screaming from behind her. She turned and saw a pale violet unicorn running up to her. After a moment Celestia realized she was screaming a name and crying, Dinky. Celestia hated this part, but it was needed. This unicorn obviously knew who had been responsible for the explosion and had likely just lost a loved one, presumably one named Dinky. She would have to attend this first.
Celestia stepped toward the onrushing mare and unfurled one of her wings to stop her. The unicorn tried to climb over Celestia’s wing and continue her journey to the ruins. Celestia just held her and used her wing to pull the unicorn into a hug. “Shhhh” she whispers “I have you.” And she just held onto the unicorn until her cries turned into sobs and then stopped all together. The unicorn is still teary eyed, but Celestia felt that whoever this was, was up to answering a few questions now, and Celestia needed some answers.
“It’s okay.” The alicorn continued to soothe. “Just tell me what happened so we can figure all of this out. Can you tell me your name?” She knew that whoever this was would do their best to help, it was in a ponies nature.
The pale violet unicorn looked up, tears streaking down her face as she started to choke out some words. “Sparkler,” Sparkler sniffled a little bit.
“Do you know what happened here?” Celestia implored
“All I know is that the local bully had gotten my sister to help her on some sort of project, I don’t know what though. The only thing I knew was that they came in this direction.”
“Was your sister’s name Dinky?”
“Yes,” Sparkler started tearing up again, her emotions were too raw, but Celestia needed this information, “She was such a good little sister, why did I have to be late?! Why couldn’t Cheerilee keep an eye on her?!” And she started to cry again.
Celestia just held onto Sparkler. She waited until a guard came up and asked her if she needed any help. Celestia nodded then moved her head so she could speak with the still crying unicorn. “Okay now, I need you to go with this guard. He will take care of you.” Celestia used her wing to guide the beset unicorn next to the guard. Sparkler just leaned up against the guard and walked where he walked, only able to move by using him for support. Celestia would have more questions later when Sparkler was better able to talk. Celestia realized she would also have to interview this Cheerilee and probably get some counselors over here to help with the fallout.
After Celestia saw the two ponies depart she turned back to the house. She noticed that a crowd was starting to gather, but none of them were getting anywhere near the house. She went back and entered the remains, just stepping over the wall into what used to be the living room. She noticed some sort of circle hanging over a book in the middle of the soot covered wooden floors. She circled the two objects, paying close attention to both as she passed. Magically they were both inert. There was no magic coming from the book; in fact it looked like the only reason it was still intact was due to some heavy protective charms that were placed on it that had been burned off during the explosion. Unfortunately, she could not say the same thing about the ponies who cast the spell, with how much heat and energy was released, she doubted they could find anything bigger than ash left of them. She would be rescheduling the educational advisor for in the morning and adding things like this to his list of research.
The thing floating above the book was the bigger mystery. It was thin, as in from the side it could barely be seen. From the front it was an opaque circle ten feet in diameter that floated one foot off of the ground. It emitted some sort of energy; the type that would cause most creatures to not approach it. Other than that though it gave off no magic, no energy, and no light; it was a void. It was just empty space that warned any who came near not to touch it, purely unnatural.
She picked up the book in her magic, her horn being covered by an immaculate white aura; first poking it with her telekinesis to make sure it wouldn’t try to form a connection to her or try to steal her magic. She looked at the page it was opened up to and gave a sigh of relief. As bad as this was, it could have been much worse, it was opened to one of the biggest threats she had ever heard of. This creature would be difficult to take down with her, her sister, and the elements attacking it. “How did this book get here?” she mumbled to herself. She knew of this book; it was over three hundred years old. She thought that every copy of it had been burned or was in the palace vaults. The pony that had come up with this book was mad; the creator had even gone so far as to bind it using pony flesh. She was one of the last ponies to face execution before it was abolished.
Celestia decided that the ‘void’ as it would be called, needed to be quarantined until they could figure out exactly what it was. If it was a threat it needed to be shut down or contained. If what was beneficial, they needed to figure out what it could do. She looked up and saw that a dozen of her guards had come to secure the area and that Luna was still floating above the city in case there was any trouble.
Celestia made her horn flash quickly, signaling an all clear to her sister. She then pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink from the castle using a teleportation spell and jots down a letter to her personal student.
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
As you are undoubtedly aware, there was a magical explosion on the outskirts of Ponyville today. It was an attempt by what appears to be two foals to summon a demon. It is yet unclear as to their purpose, but they caste it improperly and on top of a leyline. What I need from you is to find an expert and get out here to study it. Be careful around it though, it may feel benign but it was caste using dark magic and there is no way to tell what the spell that was caste will do. This will be your new priority, figure out what this ‘void’ is and find out if it poses a threat.
Princess Celestia of Equestria
Celestia then called over two guards. “You” she said ,pointing to the earth pony guard on the left “Take this letter to my apprentice, Twilight Sparkle.” She said, and floated the letter over to the guard. “You will find her in the local library. You are then to provide her with any assistance that she requires. You will assist her until she dismisses you, at which time you will return here to guard this place.” She then turned to the second guard, this one happened to be a unicorn. “You will form a cordon around this area, 15 feet in every direction, nopony is allowed past.” The guard nodded his head in understanding. “You are then to find some architects and engineers, we need a building as fast as possible to make a building in which we can study this. You will then be in charge of making sure it gets built as soon as possible.” They both nod in understanding. “Dismissed.” She commanded, and they both went off to do their separate tasks. Celestia just continued to stand there for a minute as she figured out what to do next. She decided on sitting down for dinner with Luna, this had been a trying day. But first, with a quick flick of magic, the book she had been holding in her telekinesis had burst into flames so hot that the only place they could have come from was the sun; or the entity that controlled the sun.