-Twilight's Castle-
The Mane Six walked into the castle, still thinking about what Void told them. "What did he mean about Celestia and Luna" Twilight asked. "And why did he say the Elements were his 'past, present, and future?'"
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "No clue."
Pinkie Pie asked "Maybe you should ask Princess Celestia?"
"She probably knows who he is" Fluttershy added.
As the four of them continued on, Rarity noticed Applejack staring off into space, her face having seemingly lost all expression. "Applejack, are you alright" she asked.
Blinking, Applejack looked at her and replied "I-I'm fine, Rarity."
"No offense, darling, but you never were a good liar."
"I'm still a better liar than Rainbow Dash" she muttered.
Rarity giggled. "Fair enough. But I know you well enough to know when you're not okay."
Applejack sighed, and then said "It's personal, Rarity."
Rarity knew better than to try and push it when she said that. If Applejack didn't want you to know something about her, she could be as tight-lipped as Pinkie Pie when she Pinkie-Promises to keep a secret. "Very well. But if you ever need somepony to talk to, my door is always open."
A small smirk appeared on her face, and she said "Thanks Rarity."
"Anytime."
A few minutes later the six of them walked into the throne room, to see Starlight, Spike, and Trixie talking to a unicorn mare with an amber coat, a red and gold mane and tail that looked like flames, and light green eyes. The mare looked at Starlight and said "So, Time Travel, huh? You run into another me while you did that?"
Starlight shook her head. "I didn't stick around much in any timeline. And to be honest, it was stupid of me to try it. Time Travel is like a house of cards. Mess something up, the whole thing comes down."
"Which you learned firsthand, Starlight" Twilight said, as she walked up to Sunset, eagerly wrapping her forelegs around her in a hug, which Sunset eagerly returned. "Good to see you again, Sunset."
They broke away, and Sunset smiled. "Good to see you too, Twi." She then looked to the other five and added "It's nice to meet you girls too. Especially since it's under much better circumstances."
"No hard feelings" Rainbow Dash said, putting a hoof on her shoulder.
Applejack nodded. "Twi said you changed and helped save that world."
"So obviously it means you're a good pony" Fluttershy added.
While the rest of them talked, Twilight walked over to Spike and said "Hey, could you please send a letter to the princess?"
Spike nodded, pulling out a paper and a quill. Once the message was written, he breathed green fire on it, sending it directly to Princess Celestia. "And now we just wait for me to cough up the reply" he muttered. "Seriously, is there any better way to get your mail?"
Ignoring him, Twilight looked to the rest of them and asked "So, did Spike show you to the guest room?"
Sunset nodded. "Yeah. Gotta admit, it's a lot nicer than my apartment in the human world."
"How did you pay for anything over there, darling" Rarity asked. "Or do they take bits over there as well?"
Chuckling, Sunset answered "No. See, when I left I had a bag of one thousand bits I saved up over the years. I found a pawn shop, and it turns out each single bit was worth about one hundred dollars, which is there currency."
Doing the math in her head, Twilight's jaw dropped. "That means that you had-"
"-about one hundred thousand when you left the pawn shop" Pinkie finished. Everypony looked at her and she said "What? The cakes get some pretty big orders from Canterlot (Mostly from Princess Celestia.) You don't last long in that place if you don't know your math."
Suddenly a golden glow appeared around Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy. "What the-" Rainbow asked.
"I guess Princess Celestia wants to talk to us personally" Twilight said.
"You are taking this strangely calm" Applejack stated.
"Be her student for a few years, you get used to it." She then looked at Sunset and the others and said "See you when we get back."
And in a flash of gold light, they were gone.
After a few minutes, Sunset looked to Spike and asked "So, how're the Power Ponies nowadays? I used to read them all the time before I left."
"You missed out on the New 52" Spike grumbled. "Lucky for you."
"That bad?"
"Worse. Much worse."
-Canterlot: Celestia's Throne Room-
Twilight was the first to regain her bearings as her hooves touched the marble floor. She looked up to see her mentor, Princess Celestia, standing there with a look of concern. "Hello Princess Celestia" Twilight said. "What's going on?"
Celestia looked at the six of them with a look of grave importance. "We needed to talk as soon as possible. Especially because of who you just met."
Rarity looked at her with concern. "I'm taking it the stallion we met is not a nice pony?"
Shaking her head, Celestia replied "I hesitate to call him our enemy, but needless to say our history is very old. Only Tirek's is longer."
"Who is this guy" Rainbow asked.
"And how come he's got you so spooked" Applejack added.
"He's our brother."
All seven of them turned to see Princess Luna appearing in a flash of magic. She then added "But we haven't seen each other since Celestia and I banished him 2500 years ago."
"Banished him" Fluttershy asked. "B-but why?"
Celestia and Luna looked at each other, and simultaneously sighed. "Pull up a chair" Celestia muttered.
-A Chibi-Pinkie Pie appears, clears her throat, and in a deep booming voice says "TIME! FOR! BACKSTORY!"!-
"You once asked me, Twilight, why the sun and moon in the human world are able to raise and lower themselves, but they can't in this world. The truth is, I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know is that it is because of their inability to raise and lower themselves that Luna and I were brought into this world.
You see, Luna and I were not... born, as other ponies were. Before we took our roles as Princesses of the Sun and Moon, a group of fifty of the most powerful unicorns of the time were tasked with the job of raising and lowering the sun and the moon. This was not only to make sure the world would not freeze to death in eternal night, but also to make sure the land would not be burned to ashes in eternal day. [1]
'However, one day they found that it was getting harder to do so. Afraid that one day they might not be able to perform their task and Equestria would fall into chaos, they turned to Starswirl the Bearded. He realized that, something was changing within every unicorn, even himself. For some reason, their magic would no longer be able to control the celestial bodies. To save Equestria, they'd need something that was far stronger than an ordinary unicorn. It took several days, during which the unicorns turned their efforts to making sure Equestria stayed warm, but he finally found the answer.
Starswirl gathered the necessary ingredients to perform the spell: a goblet of blood from an earth pony (one who volunteered), the wing-feathers of a pegasus, a moonstone and a sunstone[2], and a crystal laden with unicorn magic. Specifically, it was his own magic.
And last but not least, he arranged the Elements of Harmony around the ingredients. He theorized that the Elements of Harmony would react with the moonstone and sunstone, and that whatever was created would have their magic synced to the sun and the moon.
So, he activated the ritual... and that's when Luna and I came into this world as foals. That's one of the reasons you never read in the history books about our parents. Because truthfully, Starswirl the Bearded is the closest thing Luna and I have to a parent.
However, Luna and I weren't the only ones the ritual created.
A third foal had been created by the ritual, an alicorn colt with dark black fur, and a mane and tail of purest white. And while Luna and I were synced to the moon and the sun, he wasn't. It was like the Elements of Harmony had just... What's the term you young ponies use today? AH! Glitched. The Elements of Harmony had just glitched, creating our brother.
We named him Eclipse. And for a time, we were the best of friends.
But something had always seemed, off about Eclipse. As we grew up he constantly studied Starswirl's notes on the Elements of Harmony, obsessed with finding out why they created him. We, Starswirl Luna and I, tried to convince him to stop, worried for him, but he wouldn't. And eventually, he found something. A reference in a book of ancient history, before Equestria was even formed. A reference to something known as The Light of Equestria, the source of all good magic in Equestria. And supposedly, it was linked to the Elements of Harmony. Thus he set out to find it.
He didn't find it. He found something much worse.
Twilight can easily tell you girls that for every positive, there is a negative. Eclipse had left searching for The Light of Equestria. What he found was its negative, the Darkness of Equestria. The source of all dark magic in Equestria, like the kind used by King Sombra.
When he came back home he was, different. He said that the Darkness of Equestria had shown him the truth.
The Light of Equestria and the Darkness of Equestria were locked in a never-ending war with one another. This created a shaky balance that could be easily swayed. Starswirl affirmed this by saying that if the Light won, Equestria would be purged of all chaos and dark magic. The problem is that as Discord once put it, chaos at its most basic is change. If the Light won, progress would come to a screeching halt, no pony would want to change anything, even themselves. You'd basically be living the same day over and over. In essence, Equestria would be plunged into a peaceful apathy that would last forever. On the other hoof, if the darkness won, well, you remember what Discord did to Ponyville.
But my brother had a different solution. Instead of allowing this war to continue forever, why not end it?
My brother suggested that by merging the Light and the Darkness together, they would be one and the same. No more conflict between light and darkness. Perfect balance. There would be peace, but just the perfect amount of chaos to ensure that the ponies of Equestria could still progress and change.
The problem with that is that Light Magic and Dark Magic are basically like Matter and Anti-Matter. If you try to force them together, they'll annihilate each other. And since both Light and Darkness are intrinsic with not only the planet but with all inhabitants of this world...
At best, the backlash from the spell could kill millions.
At worst, anywhere from half of the population to the entirety of the population of this planet would be obliterated. Assuming the planet itself wasn't destroyed.
So naturally we were all against it.
But Eclipse...
...he wouldn't listen. He was convinced he could create a perfect world. He said that millions may die but that millions more in the future would be spared. And that if we wouldn't go through with this, then we were a bunch of fools that were blind to the truth and that he would do it himself.
And thus we were forced to fight him.
One thing I forgot to mention was that Eclipse, while not connected to the sun or the moon, still had magical power equal to Luna and I. And honestly? Out of the three of us, he was the better fighter. Even with Starswirl helping the two of us, we fought him for three days and we couldn't defeat him.
Eventually we had to use the Elements of Harmony. And they worked... Sort of.
The magic from the Elements blinded him, and burned his wings off until there was nothing left but two burn marks on his back. He was severely weakened, barely able to stand.
But aside from the damage done to him, nothing had changed. He still believed that his plan could work, that he would make it work. Nothing we did would ever make him stop.
And from that moment on, Eclipse was dead. All that stood in his place, was Void."
-Present Day-
Celestia sighed. "After that, we banished him. And in two-and-a-half millenia, we haven't seen him or heard of him. If he is here now, then clearly we are in for dark days."
The Mane 6 didn't really know how to respond. On the one hoof, this wasn't the first time they'd been told of some ancient evil/ enemy of Equestria/ generic evil-doer that they'd have to fight.
On the other hoof, this wasn't just some villain. This was, for lack of a better term, an alicorn that fell to the dark side. But unlike when Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, it didn't sound like the Elements of Harmony were going to change him back to good. Add in the fact that he was apparently stronger than Celestia, Luna, and Starswirl the Bearded combined, and it was clear that this battle would be far from easy.
Just then, a member of the Royal Guard burst through the doors. "Princess!"
Luna, Celestia, and Twilight looked at him and asked "Yes."
"It's Ponyville! It's... I can't describe it."
Everypony rushed to past the guard, desperate to see outside.
Once they did, their jaws dropped.
Five pillars made of what could only be described as black magic were now standing in different locations in Ponyville. Each one was roughly fifty feet tall, perfectly cylindrical, and gave everypony who looked at them a feeling of dread.
Rainbow Dash was the first to find her voice. "What in Tartarus are those?!"
-To Be Continued-