Rise from the Ashes: Book 1 - Canterlot

by Sparklecat

A Fiend Returns

Lightning trotted through the halls after losing the armor she had worn to disguise herself as a random guard. However she was still very nervous that if somepony knew about her betrayal that her life would be over. “Lightning where were you?!” Said a random guard running up to her, “The princess is fumed with this thief escaping again!” the guard added. The guard was quite nervous by the looks of it, and understanding Luna’s wrath she could understand.

“I’m sorry, I was with the prison guards. I was knocked out from behind and the prisoner escaped.” Lightning lied about helping her cousin escape. The guard stood firm, trying to hide his fear of the princess’ rage.

“Well Luna wants to see us soon. Also there was a robbery attempt with her apprentice, which makes the circumstances even worst.” he said with an uneasy tone.

“Lead the way.” she said let off a long sigh, knowing they were in for one hell of a scolding. The guard started walking off with Lightning down to the royal hall, where more guards were waiting for them.

“I’ve got Lightning! We’re ready for your announcement!” he said knocking on the door of Luna, “Be careful, she’s pissed.” the guard whispered to her as they both got in line. Lightning swallowed her fear for this, everypony would be frightened when Princess Luna was angry. The rest of the guards stood tall as the two large doors the door knocked upon kicked wide open by a large alicorn. It was Princess Luna with a frown upon her face, and stood beside her was Flicker Blitz.

“For the twentieth time, that little ratty thief has escaped! Somepony on the inside helped him and I will not rest till I found out who it was and they are behind bars for the rest of their rotten lives!!” Luna shouted and slamming the floor in anger. All of the guards in front of her stepped back a bit with Lightning included.

“P-please princess settle yourself.” one of the guards spoke up, but Luna cut in.

“NO! I refuse to sleep until all of this injustice is stopped for good. Even my student Flicker Blitz was victim to him!... She was lucky that he didn’t steal anything from her.” she said with a nasty snarl. Luna gazed on Flicker Blitz, “While she may not be as powerful as Twilight Sparkle, but she has her own talents. I sent her out to collect the Elements of Harmony and perfect my sister’s faults.” she said before looking back at the guard.

One of the guards blinked, “That little rat tried to steal the elements of harmony?!” he said in dismay.

“He was in my cabin, I’m not sure why, but he ran off and I tried to follow him to get some answers. However his lackey Scorchhop roped me from behind and both of them escaped.” she said explaining what happened. Lightning seemed confused, she knew her cousin was an idiot but he wasn’t evil.

“While he did attempt to rob you, I’m not sure why he would want the elements of harmony in the first place. He isn’t the type to seek for power.” Lightning said trying to get a point across.

“They are the most powerful in all the land, imagine the price we would have to pay if he stole them.” Flicker Blitz countered with logic Lightning did not want to hear.

“It is still odd though. If he did know the elements of harmony are there, why didn’t he take them when he had the chance? I’m not defending him at all despite him being my cousin, but this is just way too inconclusive with no evidence and just theories.” she said in her cousin’s defense though, despite her saying otherwise. Flicker Blitz seemed to nod in agreement.

“I know, which is why I am going to go look for him. I need to catch him before any plans are formed on his side.” she said calmly to Lightning.

“Do you wish for us to try to find him?” a guard spoke up to her.

“Until further notice, we shall take another approach. Flicker Blitz shall looked for Firebelt while the rest of you search for this traitor! If you have any leads at all or clues, report them to me at once! All we know that the traitor is female, but that alone isn’t enough. Gain as much information as you can.” Luna responded this time.

“Yes Princess Luna!” they all said in sync and stood tall, with Lightning having nothing but worry in her mind. When the guards were beginning to exit Luna’s hall with Lightning gone first, there was a suddenly cold breeze in the room. No windows were open, and the breeze did not come from the open door. Luna suddenly flinched in panic and examined the room closely, one of the guards caught the princess’ odd behavior. “Is something the matter princess?” they asked in worry.

“I feel somepony is watching us.” Luna spoke quietly and continued to examine the room. The guards all examined the room, but not a single pony was in sight.

“No pony here but us.” a guard spoke up as they couldn’t see a single unwanted pony in the room.

“You may not be able to see it, but I can certainly feel it.” Luna said while giving them a stern look with her horn lighting up. Suddenly a chuckle echoed throughout the entire room which sent shivers down everypony’s spines.

“Well well well...looks like little Miss Luna isn’t so dumb after all.” a male voice spoke up. Luna only growled in response, while looking for the hidden pony.

“And you’re still too afraid to show yourself.” she said with her horn ready for a fight. The male voice only laughed a bit in response, amused with the princess’ attitude.

“Actually, I would if I could.” it said as two eyes glowed red on the walls by Luna. “I am however restricted to this form.” he finished with a chuckle.

“That would be your own fault.” Luna said with a glare. Flicker Blitz stuck close to her highness, feeling horrified with the living shadow. She was thinking it was King Sombra but his voice was much more different and his eyes had no purple smoke.

“Who are you?!” Flicker shouted in fear and confusion with the shadow letting off a smirk.

“I am the Essence of Hate. But you can call me Sol. An old friend of little Luna here and her sister plus her apprentice, however they aren’t exactly here at the moment now are they?” the fiend finally spoke his name, and his title. Luna gritted her teeth with a snarl in response.

“You are no friend of mine!” she shouted at him and fired a blast of magic towards the wall, but the two eyes moved as the wall was destroyed beside him.

“I’m just a little incarnate of Twilight fooling around with more of her magic. She gave birth to me by accident and I got fed off the hate of so many ponies without triggering a single crisis. However after I was FINALLY noticed by the Princesses, all three of them finally worked up to beat me and they killed me. On the flip side however, thanks to the ever so tragic Equestria War enough hate was spawned to bring me back.” the voice spoke as Sol appeared as Luna’s shadow by her side. Luna stumbled back in surprise with Flicker Blitz at her side.

“How come no pony else remembers him?” Flicker Blitz asked Luna, since she had read books that Twilight Sparkle had left but there was absolutely no mention of an Essence of Hate.

“Since no pony noticed when he was around and when he was defeated, it was better for us to keep quiet about the subject.” she replied. Then she turned angrily back at Sol, “What do you want?!” she shouted angrily at the shadow. The shadow chuckled and stared at them as he leaned back on the other wall.

“Oh poor Luna, you can’t even remember my simple motive?” he said with a grin forming on the shadow. Luna thought back to Sol’s first appearance and remembered what was his first plan of attack.

“You wanted to destroy the Elements of Harmony to poison the land for all time and what is left of it.” she finally spoke up. Sol laughed and clapped his shadow hooves together with the hooves going through each other.

“Well Luna still remembers the sweet old days where the word friendship actually meant something!” he said before bursting out with laughter. Suddenly the guards who got sick of watching Sol’s foul behaviour all fired beams of magic at the shadow, but he was too swift and easily evaded them. “Oh now boys and girls...that was just rude!” he shouted before a shadow whipped up from the floor and knocked all the guards aside with ease.

“How dare you!” Luna shouted out in anger before blasting Sol from behind with a powerful lightning bolt from her horn. Sol screeched out in pain before vanishing back into the shadows.

“You’re lucky I lost my body… I only like to spice up the game a bit before I play my cards.” he said with another chuckle with a yellow tongue seemingly lick his lips from the shadow. Luna huffed only in disgust and anger from Sol’s words.

“A game? This is all it was to you?” she said unimpressed. Sol only seemed to be amused with Luna’s anger no matter how hard she tried to get him to taken her seriously, as a big red smile formed on the wall.

“Oh come on now, wasn’t it your dream to make the fun last forever?” he said sarcastically, messing with her and reminding her of her past. Luna felt discouraged but only stood up tall.

“Not that sort of fun. I wish for the better of others while YOU only wish to amuse yourself and bring despair to others!” she shouted in return. Sol only laughed in return as he smirked again only looking like a psycho this time.

“Better of others? You let a thief run free, and now a traitor on your hands and this kingdom is in shambles. I think your state of Princess is questionable, not to mention you couldn’t even took the title of queen! You just took Princess because it was cute!” he said with a teasing smile forming on the wall.

Luna narrowed her eyes in annoyance, “It was not my decision I-”

“Your highness, he is only trying to aggravate you.” the guard said trying to keep Luna calm. She let off an irritated sigh and breathe a bit before realizing Sol was beginning to vanish.

“I suggest you might want to play this game a bit better Luna~ Besides something is cooking…” Sol said as he continued to disappear. “But I don’t it’s the stove! Ga ha ha ha ha ha!” he shouted and finished with laughing and vanished completely. Luna blinked and then her eyes went wide, realizing what he meant.

“Guards, go make sure there are no fires!” she shouted at the guards before they all ran off. Luna looked down in dismay as Flicker Blitz came out from behind her.

“Princess?” she asked quietly, as she was concerned for her teacher. Luna only looked at her with a tired as hell and frustrated look.

“I wish to be left alone.” she said before trotting off.

“Your highness-!” Flicker Blitz followed her shortly before Luna whipped around to face her.

“I WISH TO BE LEFT ALONE!” Luna shouted at her in her royal voice right in her face. Flicker Blitz stammered back in fright and then raced off, “Celestia...Twilight Sparkle...why did you leave us like this…?” she thought quietly and angrily as she ran off with tears on her face.

Author's Note:

Note: I'm not the greatest in grammar, if you pick out any errors in this chapter please point them out to me! Thank you. :)

Comments

[PaulAsaran]

Nobody suspects Lightning? Really? I find that rather hard to believe, especially how she's defending him but not defending him but because she's his cousin she's defending him while not defending him or defending him by oh my Luna I've gone cross-eyed.

Luna's not acting at all like a princess, her guards are incompetent and yet still seem more cool headed than her, her apprentice doesn't appear to have any recognizable character, Luna herself seems to have a penchant for revealing everything to anyone regardless of their importance, and Sol is a B-movie villain who decided to show up and explain his entire existence for no reason whatsoever.

Let's just hope something interesting will come up from the presence of the elements of Harmony... well, three of them. I won't be at all surprised if this story ends up having a new Elements of Harmony group formed to defeat Sol and begin spreading friendship across the kingdoms.