Willow snapped awake. He sat up, squinting at the door to the Lunar Suite bedroom through the darkness. On the other side of the door, metal clanged and smashed against wood and stone. Muffled shouts could also be heard. It reminded him all too much of when Cadenza had been born.
Something screeched. Goosebumps prickled at Willow’s legs. Across the room, Cadenza shifted a little under her covers and a deep chill settled in Willow’s bones.
He quickly slipped out of bed, nerves sparking as he moved to get between Cadenza and the door. The trek usually took little more than a few seconds to reach either the doors or Cadenza. Now every step forward dragged and only a concentrated effort kept Willow moving. Furniture and toys distorted in the darkness; smiles looked too toothy, eyes glinted like steel marbles and legs turned spidery and sharp. The only things proving this wasn’t the middle of some nightmare were the solid floor below him and the rapid pounding in his chest.
Shadows flashed past the gap beneath the door. A high-pitched scrape followed by a heavy thud made Willow’s fur stand straight up. Cadenza let out a tiny murmur, but didn’t appear fully awake yet. Willow quickened his pace, stumbling over the horde of toys surrounding the bed on his way to the door.
Before he could reach them, the massive doors flew off their hinges, landing with enough force to make the floor shake.
Aria stood where they had been, silhouetted in the light of the outer hall’s torches. Her ragged breaths shook loose drops of the blue fluid dripping from her mouth onto the floor. Scrapes and gashes marred her legs and torso, also oozing blue. Two unconscious guards were on the ground beside her. Both of them were covered in burns.
Willow’s blood froze at the blazing green flames that had consumed Aria’s eyes and horn. Every instinct screamed for him to grab Cadenza and fly out the nearest window. Instead, he stayed put and unclenched his jaw.
“Aria?” he asked. “What are yo—”
He couldn’t even shout before green fire slammed into his stomach and launched him across the room and into a wall like a sack of wet laundry. There was a sharp crack and he tumbled to the ground, his entire underside singed of fur and smoking. Aria snorted as the glow around her eyes and horn dimmed and cast a glance back into the hall. There was a distant sound of panicked shouts and thudding booms that rumbled through the castle. Her lips curled into a grin to reveal a set of fangs.
“At least they managed to set up the distractions,” she said.
As the castle shook again, Aria turned her attention to the bed. “Now…”
Cadenza was staring at her. Her covers, pulled up to almost her chin, hid a bit of her quivering. Tears tumbled down her wide-eyed face and she had to move her trembling lips a few times before actual words came out.
“M-mommy.” She hiccupped. “W-what did you d-do?”
The green emanating from Aria’s horn and eyes vanished completely. She rushed over to Cadenza and covered her mouth with a hoof.
“The Princess,” Aria huffed, “she’s mad at you. Wants to do horrible things to you! Was going to make your father do horrible things to you! I had to stop him! Stop both of them! I’ll explain later, but we need to leave no—”
A spot of light appeared into Aria’s face and exploded in a ball of flames that sent her careening to the other side of the room. Celestia stood in the doorway, her horn a near blinding brightness and eyes ablaze like a pair of wildfires. Her mane and tail whipped through the air, no longer gentle hues but instead gold and crimson flames. She took a step forward, smoke curling around her hooves.
A black leg ridden with holes suddenly wrapped around Cadenza’s neck, one of the holes’ sharp edges drawing a few drops of blood. The pressure on Cadenza’s throat was the only thing that contained her scream.
One of the creature’s eyes was now glassy and translucent, the skin around it and her muzzle wrinkled like a thin piece of old leather. Her other eye was a sunken emerald flame surrounded by a black abyss. Bits of pink fur and flesh flapped around the void like maccabe ribbons.
Hot rancid breath washed over Cadenza’s face as the creature sucked in air through its slick fangs. It smelled like rotten wood and burning flesh. Cadenza didn’t try to scream anymore, she could only cry hysterically.
“You made this far more difficult than it had to be,” said the creature, its voice shaky and unnaturally deep for how feminine it was. “Now, unless you want to be the only Princess left, you’re going to lay down and stay down!”
“You think that threat is new to me?” Celestia’s hair stood up and her eyes and horn grew bright. The entire room shook when she spoke again. “Unless you want to know what an angered alicorn is capable of, you will put. Her. Down.”
“We’ve watched you,” the creature hissed. “You’re weak. You wouldn’t—”
The creature suddenly spasmed as white hot flames trailed down its horn to burn away even more of what remained of its false face. The smell of sulfur filled the air. Celestia vanished and reappeared beside Cadenza, pulling her away from the shrieking creature as it rolled about on the floor in an attempt to extinguish itself. A flap of her wings blew the bed and the creature off the ground into the wall with a loud crunching sound. Celestia remained in the air with Cadenza now on her back and enclosed in a thick shield of aura. She glared down at the creature from above as it struggled back to its hooves from under the wreckage. A mixture of Aria’s blond mane and web-like turquoise stands obscured its face.
“It’s over,” Celestia said. “Your magic is unique but far too easy to channel spells into. Surrender and I don’t get to find out what burning your entire thaumic system looks like.”
“Clever,” the creature huffed. “If only you knew so much about that thing on your back.”
When it looked up, it was wearing Aria’s face again. The eyes were still green though, reddened by the tears streaming down its cheeks.
“She’s going to kill me!” it sobbed. “Don’t let her kill me!”
“Stop it!” Celestia roared as her horn grew brighter. “How dare you toy with m—”
Shink.
Something buried itself into her left wing and Celestia gasped in pain. Both she and Cadenza plummeted to the ground. Twisting around to see what had struck her, she found Cadenza glaring at her with pure white eyes that crackled with energy.
Cadenza’s whole body shimmered, its edges angular. Her horn blazed neon pink and was encrusted with crystal that was also on the tiny hooves stabbing into Celestia’s back.
”Stop it...” Cadenza growled. “Stop hurting Mommy!
Crystal spears shot out of Cadenza’s horn and straight at Celestia’s head. They smacked into a shield and turned to dust. Before Celestia could recover though, they both slammed into the ground, separating them. Celestia struggled to her hooves, blood staining her coat and feathers.
“A crystal pony?” she gasped as the ground under Cadenza turned to glistening crystal. “How?!”
A concentrated stream of green fire slammed into her and sent her into the wall. The creature smirked at Celestia’s unmoving body and then turned her attention on Cadenza. Some of the gashes and scrapes on its body began to close.
“Incredible, that much power…” The creature shuddered and licked her lips before putting on a comforting smile. “Good job, sweetie, you beat the evil princess.” Her horn flared green. “Now, come to mommy and she’ll make everything better.”
“Mommy…” Cadenza muttered.
She lumbered closer to the creature, each step crystallizing the floor beneath her hooves. Just a few feet from the creature, she came to a stop and stared at it.
“Where’s Mommy?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“I’m right here,” the creature called out. “Come here. Come to Mo—”
A massive crystal spike shot up from the ground and slammed into its stomach. Blue ichor flew from its mouth and onto the floor. Tears streamed down Cadenza’s face past gritted teeth.
“You’re not mommy!” she roared as her eyes turned a deep shade of bruised purple. “Where’s Mommy!?”
The ground shook again, the castle groaning as its foundations twisted and writhed. Cadenza wailed as crystal spread out from under her. The creature coughed up more ichor and struggled to pull itself off the spike, despite the barbs slowly working her down towards the floor. All the while, Cadenza’s cries grew louder, crimson lightning arcing out from her to set the curtains ablaze in blue flames.
A burst of golden light suddenly filled the room. The floor went white and then red where the crystals melted. Everything else burned. Cadenza fell silent when she felt an immense heat push down on her from behind. She caught a glimpse of a bare hoof dripping molten gold.
A sharp crack rang through the suddenly silent room and Cadenza crumpled to the floor. Upon impact, her crystal armor blew to pieces, leaving her with fur again.
The room shuddered as the crystals on the walls and ceiling and windows and bed frame and everywhere else not attached to the floor shattered and disintegrated into dust. All the structures were gone in an instant, leaving Celestia standing silently amid the destruction. The right side of her body was dirtied with ash and her right eye had swollen shut. Blood still dripped down her back and left wing, but the injuries were already healing themselves.
Summoning a shield spell around herself and Cadenza, she looked through thaumic vision for the creature. Her eyes traced a green trail over to one of the windows. She turned the spell off to look at the shards of glass still dangling from the broken frame.
She took a step and felt all of her weight lurch forward. Her front knees smacked the now-bare stone floor. As she struggled to get back up, the sounds of hooves and clanking armor filled her ears. She glanced over to the room’s entrance to see that the guards had arrived. All of them remained silent, but many of them turned white at the sight of her.
Seeing them all standing there in a daze, Celestia wobbled to her hooves. Her balance was off and it took all her control to light up her horn while staying upright.
“This is a blackout warning. Code gamma omega epsilon,” she said, feeling over a thousand years of light weigh on her body as her words reverberated across the castle grounds. “Our defenses have been breached and I have been attacked. Two of the culprits are in cell two-eighteen. Captain Pick will lead the interrogation. You are authorized to use Level S magic. They have taken Sergeant Silent Gaze and possibly another guard.”
Utter silence filled the air as Celestia struggled with the last bit of her message. She looked over to Cadenza.
A glint caught her eye. Outside, she could hear more guards approaching, but they didn’t matter. Slowly, she reached down and pressed a hoof against the blue crystal heart etched into Cadenza’s flank. It bent under Celestia’s touch, being nothing more than fur. Letting out a breath, Celestia felt her lips tremble, but she closed her eyes and reapplied her spell so that all the castle could hear her.
“They have taken Mi Amore Cadenza’s mother as well.”
~~~
Years of rumors and an air of confidentiality had painted a rather grim and stereotypical picture of the Canterlot Dungeons. In times long past, there had indeed been dingy cells filled with mold, rotten barracks, and other unsavory aspects. When the dungeons had looked like that though, so had the average house.
The Modern Canterlot Dungeons were brightly lit and bereft of dust; grime and dimness would just fuel the prisoners’ negative behavior and probably get a nasty writeup from the health department. Like any jail, it was filled with a multitude of cells. Most had bars that dispelled the majority of spells. Inside these cells were the lot you would expect in any penitentiary: thieves, abusers, and similar unpleasant company. If the Dungeons were to give tours, these would be the criminals the guards would show off.
That was only the entrance level of the Dungeons. Past the area for common criminals picked off the streets of Canterlot was a door that led one floor down. Having the proper forms and identification plus going through a litany of security checks would get a pony past the first door. They would need to go through a similar procedure on each floor past that, each with increasing stringency. At first, this would just mean sealed doors instead of bars on the cells then to chains and padded rooms. The restraints and cells only grew heavier from there.
Reaching the deepest level a pony could go would take almost an entire day’s worth of security checks, a veritable tome of paperwork, and holding one of the highest ranks in government. Like the rest of the Dungeons, the bottom level was properly lit and spotless. Unlike the other levels, it had no cells, but instead a number of rooms filled with an array of apparati ranging from the scientific to the draconian.
Captain Pick sat in his office staring down at a cup of coffee he’d finished an hour ago. Despite the title of Captain, it was a mere remnant of his story about being assigned to the Frozen North. On good days, he would crack a joke with those that knew him about the reasons ponies gave for his so-called “reassignment.”
Today, freezing his flanks off in the North sounded like a trip to Las Pegasus. He’d worked with his two assistants through the night since the call had come in about a blackout order. According to the clocks, it was late afternoon now, but Pick was neither hungry nor sleepy. A long bath and a shave were near the forefront of his mind. The itch from his stubble was reaching intolerable levels. Yet, he kept his hooves at his sides while Celestia stared at him.
“I’m sorry, Pick, I don’t understand,” she said, her tone tense. “What do you mean ‘disconnected’?”
Pick kept his eyes on his cup. While the look on Celestia’s face was intimidating on its own, it was the unmarred nature of it that prevented Pick from directly facing her. Looking at her for more than a few seconds would reveal that her fur was too smooth or that her right eye was a fraction more dilated than her left. The uncanny nature of the illusion spell Celestia was using— and whatever injuries it was obscuring— made Pick shift slightly in his seat. At least she’d just gone with bandages on her back and wings.
“I mean that the two subjects were cut off from their magic and subsequently expired… if you could’ve even called them alive to begin with.” Pick couldn’t stop from shivering a little. “Sterling Shield lost her dinner when it happened and Fine Cut couldn’t hold anything steady afterwards. Honestly, Princess, whatever these things are and whatever’s leading them is something straight out of Tartarus.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Celestia glanced back to her right side. “Were you able to discern anything about their goal here?”
“All I could gather was that there’s some sort of funneling mechanism that connects all their thaumic systems in one vast web. With that information and what’s been given to me regarding the attack, the best I can guess is that finding that mechanism is what alerted their leader and it cut them off before anything more could be learned about them.”
“To just kill them like that…” Celestia felt her stomach tighten. She stared at Pick. “We’ll preserve what we can and have Mystic take a look, though I doubt it will do any good given your findings.”
“Mystic has always had a better grasp on thaumaturgy and biology than me.” Pick bowed his head, allowing some of his scruffy mane to tumble over his forehead. “If he’d been able to deal with these things first…”
“Don’t think like that.” Celestia shook her head and raised Pick’s up with a hoof. “Mystic may be my student but your medical and investigative skills are still some of the best in Equestria. It is the most I can hope for when facing an enemy such as this.”
In the artificial light, Pick saw Celestia’s face tighten. Where he had felt his stomach faintly roiling since the two subjects had expired, he now felt a pit as he saw the void in Celestia’s eyes.
“I wish it was only enemies we had to deal with today.”
Celestia’s horn glowed and conjured a small black folder into the air between her and Pick. It floated down and landed beside Pick’s cup. Pages of crisp paper pushed the folder upwards. The letters on the front of it glowed a dim blue: Memory Rehabilitation. For the first time since Celestia had arrived, Pick raised his head and stared at her.
“It’s this bad?” he asked.
“I think we can help Willow through this regular counseling. For Mi Amore…” Celestia lowered her head and shook it. “I pray that’s enough.”
~~~
Cadenza awoke not in her own room, but one similar to it. Instead of deep blues, lavenders, and maroons, there were vibrants golds, reds, and silvers. In place of the vast constellations that made up the ceiling of her room, this room’s roof was a clear dome that allowed the brilliant red and gold of dusk to flood into every crevice. Her eyes stung and she turned away from the window as her head throbbed. The sunset looked like fire.
Fire. There’d been a fire last night. A fight too. She remembered screaming. The sunlight, the fire, the screaming and the monsters all blended together in her mind as she clutched her head.
Daddy. Daddy had been hurt. He’d been in front of her bed for some reason. Then, something had thrown him across the room like one of her toys. Her stomach clenched, remembering seeing him slump down to the ground unmoving.
Her breathing grew ragged as more of the previous night came back to her. Tears were now staining the sheets beneath her. Mommy. Mommy had been hurt too.
“No! No!” Cadenza cried, remembering how half half mother’s face had been burnt off. “Get away! Get away!”
She began thrashing against the bed. A faint pink aura emanated around her body. Bits of crystals sprouted up sporadically when her hooves would smack into the sheets before exploding into dust.
A warmth suddenly wrapped itself around Cadenza. The magical glow surrounding her dimmed Looking up, she saw Celestia crouching near her. She’d extended out a wing and draped over her.
Cadenza remembered how Celestia had been ablaze. Raging flames had replaced her mane and tail and her eyes had become burning embers. She’d been something out of Tartarus. Cadenza screamed and whipped a hoof into Celestia’s side. A burst of magic exploded out of her leg and knocked Celestia a foot off the ground and away from the bed.
The magic vanished as quickly as it had appeared and Cadenza skittered backwards into the bed’s headboard. She gasped for air as she huddled under the bed, limbs twitching as her mind raced between running away and the sight of Celestia slumped across the floor.
She froze when she saw Celestia wobble upward. Crystals jabbed into Celestia’s left side and the fur around the spikes had been singed clean off. They’d also loosened some of the bandages stretched across one of Celestia’s wing and over her back. Bandages also obscured half her face. Even her mane could only limply flow at intermittent intervals.
“A-aunt Celestia!” Cadenza managed to choke out. “I-I di—”
“Sshhh,” Celestia said, her voice no different than as if she were saying good night. “I know, Cadenza, I know.”
“But you’re hurt!”
“I’ve faced far worse.”
Celestia glanced down at her newest injuries. Her horn flashed and the wounds were replaced with revitalized fur. She then turned her attention back to Cadenza.
“It’s you I’m concerned about.”
“W-what happened?” Cadenza whimpered. A slight glow circled around her eyes. “Daddy… Mommy. They were hurt too!”
“I know,” Celestia sighed. “I know. We’re doing everything we can.”
Cadenza’s body seemed to snap upright. She clenched her teeth and started sobbing. Below her, the sheets shifted back and forth between crystal and thread. She didn’t even notice Celestia draw near again and wrap a wing around her once more. This time, she wasn’t pushed away.
“I want to see Mommy and Daddy,” Cadenza muttered.
“I understand...” Celestia’s brow creased. “But I need to you calm down first. Look at what your magic has done. Your parents aren’t as strong as I am and I can’t risk uncontrollable magic hurting anypony. ”
“W-what should I do?” Cadenza asked as the glow around her faded and the crystal beneath her hooves receded.
Celestia reached out with a hoof and brushed Cadenza’s mane. “Would you like to hear a story?”
“A… a story?” Cadenza sniffled.
“Yes,” said Celestia. “Telling stories is a good way to calm down. I did it many times when I was a filly.”
“Then…” Cadenza wiped at her nose with a hoof. “Can I please see Mommy and Daddy after?”
Celestia let out a deep breath. “I promise. Thank you, Cadenza.”
While keep her wing wrapped around Cadenza, Celestia moved onto the bed. She slowly lowered herself onto her right side, making sure that Cadenza had ample room to move about as well while still being within reach of her workable wing. She smiled down on the young alicorn even while Cadenza still slightly shimmered with magic and her hooves pulsated with crystal.
“This story is an old one,” Celestia began, “so old that I may be the only pony in Equestria that remembers it. You see, long ago, when Equestria was still a young kingdom and I was just learning the ways of ruling, there existed five kinds of ponies.”
“Five?” Cadenza looked down at the bed and counted with a hoof into the sheets When the sheet turned to crystal she pulled back her hoof and raised it into the air instead. As she made the strokes, she murmured, “Earth, pegasus, unicorn, alicorn… what was the fifth?”
“From afar they looked just like Earth Ponies, but up close you could see that their coats glimmered like the brightest of diamonds and their bodies were shaped like finely cut gems. These were the Crystal Ponies.”
Cadenza stared down at her own glittering hooves. “Crystal Ponies.”
“They possessed an incredible power over emotional magic,” Celestia continued. “Even their colts and fillies could perform spells that would take a skilled unicorn years of study to do. They were powerful enough to create a self-sustaining spell that birthed a plethora of life where none should have existed. And with that power, they managed to create the Crystal Empire deep in the Frozen North, far away from any other pony.”
“Is that why I haven’t heard of them?” Cadenza asked.
Celestia gave a slow shake of her head. “No. A little over a thousand years ago, Equestria was entering a peaceful age. With that peace came chances at diplomacy that had never come before. Ponies became friends with the donkeys and the Saddle Arabian Horses and we had our first encounters with zebras and griffins. This was also the time we came across the Crystal Ponies.”
Celestia’s eyes grew a little clouded. “We were skeptical of each other at first: the Crystal Ponies for fear of having the secrets of their magic stolen or exploited and us for knowing nothing about them except that only an immense power could keep them alive in the Frozen North. Yet, slowly, we began to speak with each other. Trade was planned, treaties were drafted, and envoys were deployed more and more frequently. Our greatest success came when we organized an exchange of our most influential minds. We would have sent our chosen student to the Empire and the Crystal Pony’s leader would have sent theirs to Equestria.”
Celestia paused and turned away from Cadenza to stare out at the setting sun. “The Empire’s student, Radiant Dawn, came to us a month early on the brink of death. She’d crossed the Frozen North alone without equipment, food, or rest. All she could do when she reached us was say one word: Sombra.”
Goosebumps erupted across Cadenza’s skin. She shuddered and pulled the sheets around her closer. “W-what’s a Sombra?”
“A creature long ago banished into the darkness. We learned little about him, but what we saw was that he was everything the Crystal Ponies were not. Where Crystal Ponies gained magic from happiness, love, and kindness, Sombra drew strength from hatred and greed, turning the Crystal Empire into a living nightmare.”
“To us, he was just an evil pony. We had fought dragons, the lowest beasts of Tartarus, and monsters far worse than anything you could imagine. Sombra had to be stopped… but we had no idea what he would do when he lost.” Celestia lowered her head, the shadows deepening around her face as her mane limply waved down to the floor. “I still see what he did when I sleep some nights.”
Celestia glanced over at Cadenza. Her eyes were like black pits. Cadenza felt the need to run, but her legs were pinned to the bed.
“When Sombra was defeated, he channeled all his remaining power into a curse. As he sunk into the ice, the Crystal Empire sunk into shadow. An entire civilization—countless innocent lives—swallowed up in an instant and a final promise that he would return for his throne one day. So I have a contingent of guards stationed in the Frozen North just to keep watch of where the Empire once stood to this day.”
“W-why are you telling me this?” Cadenza asked.
Celestia’s smiled and her eyes regained some warmth. “Because Sombra also said that as long as the Crystal Heart— the great conduit for all the Crystal Ponies’ magic— was sealed away, he would be unstoppable. Yet, after a thousand years, the first ever clue to its whereabouts has been found.”
Celestia lifted her left foreleg off the bed and pointed it at Cadenza. “Even after a thousand years, I’ve never forgotten the brilliant sight of the Crystal Heart. It’s right there on your flank.”
“What?” Cadenza spun her head around and looked down at the glistening blue heart-shaped crystal emblazoned on her flanks. “My cutie mark?
“Yes. ” Celestia replied. “We’re still putting the pieces together, but I believe that is a major cause of why you and your family were attacked. The kidnappers most likely wanted to harness the magic that you carry for themselves. They managed to manipulate some of it and used it to injure me.”
“Were Mommy and Daddy hurt?” Cadenza’s headache came clamoring back as sweat beaded her brow. “Mommy… is Mommy okay?”
“As I said, I have the strongest ponies in Equestria taking care of them.” Celestia tensed up and her jaw clenched. “Your father is fine and your mother will be fine as soon a—.”
“‘W-will’?” Cadenza sat straight up. “What happened to Mommy?”
Celestia breathed deeply. “When we were attacked, they took your mother somewhere a—”
“No.” Cadenza gritted her teeth. Her hooves started to shake.
“Cadenza, I have the most skilled ponies in Eque—”
“No!” Cadenza screamed. The entire bed crystallized under her. “You lied! You said I could see Mommy! You said I cou—”
A bolt of magic slammed into Cadenza's head at the base of her horn. A few tiny sparks flew out as Cadenza’s eyes grew glassy and she slumped back onto her crackling sheets. Celestia kept her from falling off the bed with a wing. She stared down at Cadenza and felt her eyes growing damp.
“I’m sorry, Luna,” she whispered, “I’ve failed again.”
End Foalhood