//------------------------------//
// A Trip Down Memory Lane/ Cavea Ferrum 
// Story: Rise Of The Empress 
// by Mystic Sunrise 
//------------------------------//

If this world had any good, then it's just as dead as our past.

Anonymous Techno-Barbarian of the Everfree Dust Bowl.





This area of the Northern Wastes was deserted more so than most areas of Equus. Almost all avoided it, feeling an unnatural pall of fear and heartbreak if they ever entered it. Those few strong enough to continue on found that this feeling all came from a single source. One that even the most hard-bitten rad-mutant avoided at all costs.

The Crystal Ruins.

No one knew what they were. Some said it was the shattered and broken remains of a once-great city, one that had fallen even before the horror of Old Night had fallen on Equus. Others had darker theories.

But for the first time in uncounted years, two individuals made their way to the ruins with a single-mindedness, even if only one of them knew why they were going there.





"Are you sure this is the place?" Midnight asked as she looked around at the ruins before them. "I mean, what could be here after so long? And why here?"

The midnight blue Pegasus barely came up to the shoulder of her companion. Her companion's features were harder to make out for she wore a long cloak that hid her features, all save for a pair of lavender wings at her side.

Her friend smiled, even if Midnight couldn't see it. "Something that I buried here a long time ago. I can only hope it is still here." She could feel though that Midnight still was not convinced. "Middy, I know you do not believe me, but have I ever led you wrong before?"

Midnight rolled her eyes at the use of her nickname. "No, but there's a first time for everything, and your following is growing. They're worried about you."

Her friend smirked. "Oh, and you do not?"

Midnight smiled up at her. "I've known you my whole life. I know you don't need it. But this place gives me the creeps."

And it was true. This place gave her the creeps in a bad way. Even being with her friend could only help so much. And Midnight had known for as long as she could remember. Her very first memory, in fact, was looking up into the mare's face. A face that radiated love, warmth, and compassion.

The next moment, the newborn filly had wrapped her hooves around the mare's legs and had never let go since. In a way that was. To Midnight, she was more than just a friend. She was the mother she had never known.

The other mare pulled her close into a comforting hug. "I know, but we are almost there."

As they pulled apart and began to enter the ruins, the elder looked around, seeing the ghosts and memories of a long-dead past all around her. She still remembered the city in its prime, all the adventures she and a group of friends she still loved thirty thousand years after they had passed had here. An errant gust of wind blew her cloak off her flank for a moment revealing her cutie mark, one that had lost its meaning a long time ago.

A Fuschia star, surrounded by five smaller white ones.





Sometime later the two came to, what Midnight assumed, had once been the center of whatever the ruins had once been. All that was left now though were massive pieces of shattered crystal lying in huge heaps all around them.

As they came underneath one such heap, she heard something crack under her hoof. Looking down she saw that she had stepped on more crystal shards, but smaller than the rest around them. Whatever they had once been, they now lay broken and dirty with age. "What was this place?" She finally asked as she looked away from the broken shards.

Her companion halted. "It was a city once. Once one of the most beautiful on all of Equus. It fell." She stopped as her breath hitched. "Long ago."

Now Midnight was curious. "Did you know it? Sounds like you did."

"Yes." That was all her friend said before she resumed walking leaving Midnight to catch up.

Soon the two of them found a stairwell leading down. It was so well hidden that if she hadn't been led right to it, Midnight would've never found it. After a long descent, they finally came to a landing with a single door. With a purple glow, the door opened with the sound of rusty hinges, and Midnight felt her mouth drop.

For as far as the eye could see, shelf upon shelf was heaped with books, data crystals, and what looked like very old-fashioned data slates. Tables were scattered here and there for those who had need of them. Midnight did not think it was possible for this many books to exist, and in one location at that. The Unspeakable King of the Pan Lunaic Empire made a habit of destroying any and all knowledge he or his armies found.

As they entered the room properly, lights flickered to life along the ceiling. Following her friend, Midnight tried to take in all that she could see, but there was so much here she didn't even know where to start.

One thing though stood out, a name that kept repeating itself, and a symbol she recognized. "She finally had to ask. "Who was Twilight Sparkle? Her name's all over the place."

That stopped her companion dead in her tracks. "She was a very great pony. Once upon a time." She turned to face Midnight. "Midnight, I must ask you to forget that name. Erase it from your mind."

Midnight was shocked. "Why?"

Her friend finally removed her cloak and tossed it onto a nearby table. "I have spent generations erasing any and all knowledge of that name. Twilight Sparkle." She paused as her tears fell. "Died long ago."

Midnight pointed at the symbol and then at her friend's flank. "But that symbol-"

"Lost its meaning a long time ago. It is nothing but a symbol of a long-dead past now," the mare replied as she pulled out a seemingly random book.

As she did, a section of wall pulled back, revealing another tunnel beyond that stretched out into an unknown distance. Lights flickered on along its length showing nothing but pristine white walls. "Go on ahead, I will be along in a moment," the mare continued, giving Midnight a smile.

Midnight gave her a dubious look, but finally nodded and trotted down the tunnel.

Her companion stood outside the door a moment longer, looking over the stacks of books and the memories they held.

Then the mare once known as Twilight Sparkle turned away from her past for the final time and headed toward what she hoped was a brighter future for all of Equus.





Midnight had not gone far before Twilight caught up to her. As they trotted down the corridor, she could feel that Midnight was holding back a question. "Middy. I know you have to have a million questions now." She paused and gave her a look. "So come on, spill it."

Midnight sighed. She did have a million questions. A million and one actually. So, she started with the most obvious. "How're all those books here? They've had to have been down here for a long time. Hay, how did nopony find them?"

Twilight smiled. "There is a time-locked stasis-seal on the door. It is keyed to my magic and that of a few others. But they are nowhere to be found. We put them in place when this was still a city. It is off for now, and it will start again when we leave."

Midnight nodded. "And I doubt anyone's been here since the city fell." She looked around at the spotless walls. No other doors lead off from it except the one they'd entered by. "So where does this go anyway?"

Twilight sighed. "A backup plan I never thought I would have to use. But my primary lab was rendered useless centuries ago."

Midnight blinked. She knew Twilight was far older than she looked. But she rarely talked about her past for some reason. "What happened to the first one? Where was it?" She asked.

Twilight rubbed her snout irritably. "In the Everfree Dust Bowl. Back then though it was a forest. Luckily I have an obsessive-compulsive attention to detail so everything there was replicated here."

By this point, the two of them had come to a stainless-steel door. There did not seem to be any way to open it though. Twilight gave it a look. "And that includes the defenses I put in place for it as well."

Midnight took a step back. "What sort of defenses?"

Twilight waved a hoof. "Oh, you know, the usual. Doors, magic, and a few ideas of my own." She paused before giving Midnight a sheepish smile. "Oh, and watch out for the automated weapons batteries."

Midnight was about to ask what she meant by that last bit when two panels in the ceiling suddenly opened and two magicannons slotted out, their targeters locked onto her.

"... meep!! Was all she could squeak out in response.

Twilight smiled. "Relax. As long as you are with me you will be fine. I designed this so only those who came with me or just me could get past this point. Now comes the easy part."

With that, she stepped up to the floor. As she did, a suite of sensors in the walls, floor, and ceiling began sweeping her body to confirm her identity. Air samplers tasted her breath, body-mass sensors registered her weight, and radiation detectors measure the decay rate of isotopes in her blood and bones. Over a hundred such measurements and genetic markers were compared against real-time data logs to ensure it was really her and not some imp trying to get in.

Finally, the door slid open and allowed them to pass through. The cannons continued to track Midnight until she and Twilight had passed through the doors before rotating back up into inactivity.

The first Midnight noticed was the major drop in temperature. Her Pegasus heritage allowed her to shake it off, but it still came as a shock. But what she saw next made her mouth drop in surprise. They had entered a vast cavern, the far walls so far away she couldn't even see them. Next to them, a ramp descended into the darkness.

Midnight craned her neck over the edge, but there was no bottom visible. "So, now what?" She asked.

Twilight sighed. "Now comes the hard part."





How long had it been since they had entered the maze? Midnight did not know. She had lost track of time since they had entered this place. Hours, days, weeks, months maybe? It can't have been years even if it felt like it sometimes. "What idiot thought putting inverted gravity rooms in here was a good idea anyway?" She grumbled as she and Twilight took a short break in a side chamber.

Twilight shot her a hurt look. "Hey, I resent that remark. I thought it was a good idea at the time, sue me."

"If we ever get out of here I might." Midnight grumbled as she ruffled her wings. "I think most of my feathers are still a few corridors back. Are we even close to, whatever you're looking for?"

Twilight sighed as they stepped back out into the corridor and turned in a new direction. "I do not know. I designed this place to make it very hard to find the center and there is no way to map it either."

Midnight was only half listening while she watched out for more traps. Even though this section looked safe, experience had taught her looks were deceiving. More than once one of them had tripped a hidden pressure plate activated all kinds of unpleasant things.

What was worse though were the mobile sentries. Each was pony-shaped, but they were a machine, carrying weapons she couldn't even begin to guess at what they were. But what horrified her the most was that each and every one of them had been an A.I. (Abominable Intelligence). Midnight had heard stories of the Mares of Iron. Now having seen them, she wanted to quickly forget them. "Where did you even get the design for this place anyway? I don't think half this stuff was ever designed on Equus or Mares." She finally said after a moment.

Twilight shook her head. "That is because they're not based on any design Equus or Mares has ever known. They are based on a design called the Cavea Ferrum I found in a universe far from here. Designed by someone named the Firenzi Polymath."

Midnight giggled. "What kind of name is that?"

Twilight giggled too. "Hay if I know. But it is also based on a design done by one of the greatest beings to have ever existed. He designed it to guard something so vital that he put the best defenses up for it."

"Did he have a name?" Midnight asked.

Twilight shook her head as she gained a faraway look in her eyes, memories of life in another universe coming back. "If he ever did, he never told anyone. All who followed him knew him by a single title, one that fit him so well that he seemed destined for it."

"What was it?" Midnight asked, holding her breath.

"The Emperor."





Following the end of Twilight's tale, they walked on for some time in silence. Midnight's mind had begun to fill with visions of a golden clad warrior, a halo of light shining from his form. His features were indistinct, but she could feel the strength and power he radiated, yet also not without warmth and love.

So caught up in them was she that she didn't notice that Twilight had stopped until she ran into the back of her. Coming to her senses, she found Twilight giving her a smile.

"We are here," she said.