When Fresh Dawn threw those doors open, they were met with a cold chilling silence and the creaking sound of the hinges. There was nothing but black before the Guards rushed in with flashlights dancing.
Celestia could make out a very high ceiling when she stepped inside thanks to the sound of their hooves trotting on metal. Her own heavy breathing overshadowed the thought that Twilight may have practiced Dark Magic. As concerning as that was, they still needed light. Luna's glowing mane was the only sign that she was there next to her. No magic was allowed and apparently only the Guards had flashlights.
Luna glanced around and started to ask, "So, how do you—"
Light suddenly exploded from the ceiling to their right, illuminating an entire section of the wall in an warming glow before the wall on the left did the same. Their location made them drop their jaws. The picture did it no justice. Color coordination of hundreds of texts on shelves carved from the gold-mixed-with-stone wall. From the high ceiling down to the low floors. Then the wall next to it did the same. They held their breaths while all the texts were lit up as far as the eye could see. Then the lights in the middle began to brighten, revealing parts of the Mecrah Portal.
Once all lights were lit they witnessed the paths leading them to all sections of this massive library. Steel walks that traveled above them, below them, across from them like a maze of wonder connected to all the shelves.
Shining whispered, "This is spectacular." He just couldn't look away. Especially from the Mecrah Portal. The big slab of gold that brought this entire library together.
Madun pointed to it and stated, "That is our goal: Get that opened somehow. Bright Gold, your group will go with Fresh Dawn down to the floor with a handful of men. Be wary of what you touch. Dawn, study that binder. Princesses, you start looking for any runes and see what you can find out of all of this. Remember, no magic. There's no telling what'll happen. Let's go."
The flood of ponies poured into Queen Arcadia's sanctum. Hooves clattered across steel. Some jumped over the ledge and soared for the smooth ground below them. Towards the laboratory. Others stayed at the door in case they were needed.
Bright Gold had never seen anything like this in all her years. This place was really old. Whatever this... This tunnel was. This was obviously here before Queen Arcadia was. But why?
The tunnel was longer than the eye could see. The Mecrah Portal was just hiding most of it from sight. Twilight's been using it to store all of her spells, which would be harmless were there no Dark Magic involved. But there was definitely some involved if the Unicorns and ponies from overseas could sense it.
Bright Gold softly landed on smoothly carved rock with Fresh Dawn and Gardeen, and looked at everything around her. But she was mostly focused on the dusty board that held the massive amount of controls in front of her. There had to be over a hundred buttons, let alone sliders. But what purpose did they serve?
The scientists and technicians she brought with her placed their things down on the ground and started their discussions involving plans of actions while setting up lights, tables, technology. They trained their lights on the board in front of them spanning...
"Thirty feet," a timid voice said on Bright Gold's right. Rising Flutter's pink mane fell into her face and her yellow coat seemed to be vibrating with fear. But she stayed strong behind that mask, staring at the board like it was a slab of gold. "This instrument is thirty feet long and may even be run by a single pony. How do we turn this on?"
Bright Gold shook her head at it and turned to Fresh Dawn reading through the binder. She hummed a single tone, the noise her mind makes while working out problems. "Uhh... There's supposed to be a button on it that reads, 'Power.'"
She set her binder down on the ground and hopped into the chair to get a look. This thing had a lot of controls. And everything seemed dead. A cloud of dust rose up, tempting her to sneeze.
Her eyes scanned the control board with the rest of the ponies that occupied her. Cameras recording every single thing they were doing. Everything was gray and lifeless with time. But they wouldn't give up. Dawn sighed and silently cursed nature. Then spotted... Something. Something pulsing in her eyesight. She glanced to it, but nothing was there but another gray button. But she knew what she saw.
Dawn looked away and saw it again. Something pulsing. But when she directed her eyes to it, it just looked like another gray lifeless button.
This was probably an illusion involving magic she bet. Dawn settled her eyes on the buttons and raised a hoof for attention. "I found something," she said.
Bright Gold walked over from Rising Flutter and followed Dawn's line hoof to the button. "This is pulsing." She raised her Comm Block and ordered, "Princess Dawn to channels, stand by."
The ponies on the levels stopped doing what they were doing and directed their sights down to the board. King Madun and ponies that knew magic were by her side in a few seconds. Staring at the board like she was. Huffing, Celestia asked, "What did you find?"
Dawn shook her head and answered, "I'm not sure. But this button..." She pointed to it. "It's blinking, pulsing with light or something when I'm not looking at it." Celestia tested that and glanced to the side. Indeed, something was. Something bright red. But when she glanced back, it was gone. Lifeless. Dead.
She nodded and answered, "I see it too."
"Then I'm definitely not crazy. I'm pressing it in three... Two... One..." She jabbed her hoof onto it and triggered a small chain of events.
First all the buttons on the console lit up different colors. Red, blue, green, yellow, all possible hues. They flashed in a strange sequence that definitely wasn't randomized. Next, something clicked and whirred inside of it that created a low-sounding hum. A bass that washed over their coats with a massaging vibration.
At the two corners of the Mecrah Portal in front of them were two tubs gradually glowing purple with magic. Then finally the Mecrah Portal started up. Lines of energy that ran through all the carvings raced around like neon fireflies of different colors. Flashing and appealing to the eyes.
Starlight could just stare at that forever. At the light show that danced on this huge slab of gold. But something else popped up that brought even greater attention.
An entire bright square suddenly appeared shrouding away the front of the portal with static as the main image. It painted everything below it in white and hurt their eyes. The lights above dimmed automatically save for the one directly over the portal itself. The tunnel was dark once more. But none complained. Although Luna did sigh. What was it with Psera and the flash?
Sounds of static reached their ears and made them look around for the source before the static switched out for somepony far better. Madun nudged his way to the front behind Princess Dawn to stare up at the recording of Queen Arcadia. Dressed in a lab coat with her mane tied up in a bun that reminded Sunset Shimmer of the Twilight from Canterlot High. She was smiling with such lively eyes and adjusting the camera for a straighter fit. It hit the edge of something and soon stabilized.
"I really should invest in a stand," she said. Her voice echoed around the whole lab. In the video and in real life. She backed up and placed herself in the center of the frame. From what they could tell right off the bat was that she was in the exact same seat as Fresh Dawn was right now. In front of this Control Panel with everything on. In the background was an earlier version of the Mecrah Portal, still in the stage of development.
"All of this stuff and I don't have a simple tripod I could even build myself. I need to make a note of that... Right now." Without looking a notepad in front of her face flew up with a pen that expertly wrote down her request. Then it lowered back out of view. Classic Twilight. "Date? January Fourteenth, twenty sixteen. Subject... Project Mecrah."
Luna mouthed those words to herself. Mecrah. What did that mean?
Twilight proudly stated, "Today's simulation was a success! Yesterday's issue? Red didn't do well with blue. It broke the pattern, which in turn broke the portal's seal. It would be a completely useless spell if the OUT end broke and allowed what I threw in there to come out inside Psera. Completely awful. But it's fixed now. Red and blue just cannot be routed together to risk a huge explosion. So, I routed it to green instead.
"On another note..." Twilight's smile dropped and her voice turned dark. "I have completed the symbiote." She raised a large glass bottle of purple liquid into view that they looked at. "This will be added into the Mecrah Portal as a sort of cuff to the Prisoner. As well as a sustenance of health and sleep aid. How do I apply it? Easy. I open the IN-Port, toss this in, then close it back. A living brain, with a strange desire to feed."
Arcadia stood up with the beaker and explained, "I'm going to test this tomorrow and see what I get. But right now, I need to start heading home. Dawn's about to wake from her nappy and always looks for mommy afterwards. This is Twilight 'Arcadia Nova' Sparkle. Signing off." The screen switched straight to the static once more and urged a conversation.
Madun asked behind his mask, "What type of magic was that?"
"Science," Sunset answered. That was as close as she could get.
The screen switched to something else. But they could easily tell this was different. Much different. For one, this didn't seem to be a log, but rather a recording of something she was doing at the table. The camera was at the exact same location. But she wasn't. She was at the table directly behind them, with lights shining onto the back of Twilight's protective coat. She was wearing a PPE and handling machinery on the table.
"Log... Oh, who cares the date, I wish not to be reminded of it," Twilight said. It was clear in her tone that she was upset. Stressed. Angry.
She swiped a box of tools to the floor with no care or reaction to the clamour. "I fear this may be the last log I Record. I messed up. Over three thousand of my citizens made up of innocent wives, husbands, children... Are dead. Because I failed to acknowledge the PDS Flaw. I failed to acknowledge that my work can't stop every threat. And I failed to see or recognize the signs of imminent danger. I grew sloppy and I let my Guard down. Trouble finds me once again, and now I have to make it right."
She stepped to the side and revealed what she was working on. The Sword of Arcadia and Blue Gold...
"This was her last recording," Celestia whispered.
The last recording her mother ever made. Dawn stood in her seat and placed her hooves on the edge of the board to listen in. Arcadia lifted up the sword with her magic and stared at her reflection in the blue blade. Going back in time in her mind. It was as if they were truly there. Standing behind Twilight listening to her grieve.
"I remember when my husband gave this to me. On my crowning and inauguration. But I believe he, like the rest of Psera, is furious with my actions. I have let down my country and shamed my family. I have to make this right, he said. I need to find a solution." Twilight slowly rotated her body to face her audience, took a deep breath and admitted, "I have two solutions. One? The Blue Gold. Sending this into Maheera's heart will end her within a minute. I'm not fond of taking lives. But she took thousands of my own. It's time for my more violent side to come out."
Twilight set the sword back down on the table and used her magic to adjust the Camera to train on the Mecrah Portal. "And finally... The Mecrah Portal. I have used a concerning amount of magic to create this masterpiece. If they were to ask me... Yes. I am using Dark Magic to create this. You cannot combat Maheera using regular Magic, you will fail. Narmeelah made that mistake along with the Guardians of Psera. They used the same magic to fight her with no real permanent result. The energies involved in both Dark Magic and Light Magic cancel the other out when combined, creating a negative energy."
Twilight walked away from the camera for the long control board. "The Mecrah Portal is a contained time spell. A time spell with hidden dangers all inside of it that causes a pony to fight for their life. A curse, an abomination that I already regret creating... But had to. I do not want Maheera taking another step towards my ponies. Tonight, we end this. Hopefully, I won't have to use this device. But there is no telling. I'll be trapped inside my own creation, but I would do it to protect the ponies I love most of all."
She did something on the board involving a lot of button pressing. Then clopped her two hooves together with a spark of magic between them. Which didn't work out for them here in the real world.
Sunset heard it first. A scuffle. She whirled around in the back and watched her dark environment. Anxious eyes and hectic breathing as her expression. Since everyone here were silent, she heard it clearly. Something was in the shadows. Watching. Listening. Crawling.
"Uhhh... C-Cut the feed," she warned.
Celestia looked back and asked, "Sunset?"
Sunset stood up and listened closer. Then she heard it. Laughter. Creepy laughter. Uh uh, nope! Sunset rushed past them and jabbed her hoof on the button Dawn pressed earlier. Cutting the feed and shutting down the show. They complained and all looked to her with irate glares.
"Everyone shut up!" She scolded.
Madun gasped before she whispered, "Don't you hear that?" Then focused back around her. The light was slowly coming back and brightening up their atmosphere that shined on everything from above. But there were still dark corners and black areas. A lot of black areas. They followed her line of sight to the lab and listened closely. Nothing but tables, lights, dust, and cables on the floor that traveled all over the place.
Then Starlight heard it too. A cackling and small ruckus above. She grabbed hold of a Guard's flashlight and shined it to the ceiling. It hit something purple on the walkway directly above them before it ducked back out of sight.
"Up there!" She yelled.
The Guards on the floor all shone their flashlights to the walkways and watched everything. Those already up there started waving theirs around. They danced on the books, on the Mecrah Portal. On the ground. And definitely on wherever that sound is coming from. Like a squeaky rocking chair. And something brushing. Dawn kept herself behind her Guards but kept her heart beat racing. Her eyes peeled. Her hooves ready to run.
Something ran across their field of vision on the bottom floor. Something grayish-purple. "What was that?!" Luna yelled. She was really tempted to light it up. But there was no telling if there were more.
Captain Smalls poked a soldier on her right and directed him to go that way with two more. Then grabbed two of her own and went to the left. Their flashlights never left the device they were hiding around. Why did the Queen have to make such creepy things in here?
Captain Smalls' breathing paced with her own heart rate. Almost on the other side. Almost...
Something jumped out and onto the top of the device. Then started digging around by flinging things off. Smalls gasped and immediately fired with the rest of her soldiers towards whatever this was.
"Ow, ow, hey, what the buck!! Ow!!"
"Hold your fire, hold your fire!" Smalls ordered. Then stared closer at the thing... Pony they shot down from the top of this wooden device. "Who are you and... QUEEN ARCADIA?!!"
Well it was Queen Twilight... Then it wasn't. For one, Queen Arcadia's wings dragged the ground and were much bigger, she was taller that that, and her mane wasn't nearly this messy and unkempt. This looks like the Twilight from the past when she first arrived on Psera. Although with a more off-purple coat on her body. Not to mention what she was wearing. A black school filly outfit complete with ripped black jeans, a pretty diamond necklace, a black sweat jacket, and some hipster glasses.
She scoffed and spoke in a whiney teenage voice. "Oh. My. Narmeelah, like, can you not shine those on me? That is way too bright. Get those out of my face before I blast you."
"Start talking, what is your name!" Captain Smalls ordered. "And why are you down here?"
"Ugggh, I'm Sassy Twilight. I'm one of the protectors of this place. Now throw those things away before I do."
Captain Smalls referred to King Madun for an order. He kept his awe-stricken eyes on Queen Arcadia but slowly nodded his head. So they cut off their lights and allowed Sassy Twilight to jump down and complain some more. "Seriously, uggh! I mean really. I just can't find my hoof file anywhere. Have you seen a red hoof file in here? When I heard Arcadia clap her hooves, it scared me, and I dropped it. I have been LOOKING for it ever since. Oh my stars, it's been over six hundred seconds already, that's too lonnnnng-uh!"
Celestia slowly walked forward and asked, "You've been in here this entire time?"
Sassy Twilight waved a dismissing hoof at Celestia and answered, "Yes, yes, now where is my hoof file?" She walked into Celestia and burst into black smoke. Then reformed on the other side. They all saw it. No mistaking that.
Luna whispered, "Dark Magic."
Celestia whirled around and watched her run onto the Mecrah Portal's surface. Then jumped down behind it and started kicking things around. Celestia cleared her voice and asked, "Can you help us activate this port—"
"There you are!" A red hoof file was lifted in Sassy Twilight's magic. She's been searching high and low for this!! She grinned with no care in the world and walked back to where she came from.
"Twilight." Twilight stopped walking around and faced Celestia again. "We could really use your assistance here."
"Ugggh, with what? Everypony always wants me to help them. But nopony ever asks if I need help." She groaned with an eye roll.
"Can you help us power on this portal?"
Twilight tilted her head back and groaned louder than before. "Uggggh, I don't know how to work it, that's more for the other Twilights. Let me call one. HUMOR, GET UP!!" She yelled. "Get your lazy flank down here, we have to get Arcadia out!"
A pink version literally fell from the sky and slammed straight down into the steel table face first.
"Holy Faust!!" Starlight yelled. It was so sudden! What is with all of these surprises?! A pink version of Twilight with really long purple hair popped up from the wreckage hosting a big grin directed at Dawn.
"Ooooh, look at my baby!" She squealed. Her hooves ran over and pulled Dawn into a big hug she did not enjoy at all. For one it was way too tight and this pony smelled like bubblegum. Not to mention...
"Holy Narmeelah, you are freezing!!" She yelled.
Twilight let her go and said, "Hi, I'm Twilight! I think. Am I? I don't know, what do you think? Oh who cares?! Uh oh, there I go rambling again! Ha ha ha! Let's get this huge piece of whatever opened. Let's work together, okay? You stand there and watch what I do."
Sassy Twilight looked up to Celestia and whispered, "She's clearly not right. I recommended to Arcadia that she should've been put down, but she said all creatures deserve a chance. I begged her to make an exception."
Humor started jabbing on the control panel buttons with exaggerated sound effects she created with her mouth. "Beep boop boppity bop bing bang bow! Annd... Tappity tap tap tap tapping tap, tapping more buttons!" She jabbed a green button flashing in the far left corner.
The Portal came to life. The lines on the face of the machine constantly glowed different colors. Yellow, purple, red, white, green, blue, orange, and the rest of the colors belonging to the pearls they had around their necks.
Dawn jumped back into her chair and nodded to it. "Great, now... Where'd they go?"
They looked behind their backs to the place where the Twilights recently were. Now vacant.
Sunset yelled, "Sassy Twilight? Humor?" No response. It was like they never existed. "That's really weird. I don't like weird. Let's get Twilight out, then get the heck out of here."
They couldn't agree more. Madun said behind the mask, "I guess we're doing this ourselves now. Dawn? Do you know where the Keys go?"
"On the edges, but I'm not sure yet. I'll research some more." She yanked the binder up with her hooves, propped her hooves on the control panel and started reading. So while she did that, Celestia decided to look into that thing she saw before that video came up.
She nudged Luna then took off back into the air for the shelves with her on her tail. When she landed with Luna, she whispered, "So Twilight in fact used Dark Magic to fight Maheera." She walked along this shelf and eyed it closely.
Luna followed her gaze and steps to catch up. "Yes, she's... Rather experienced in it. Do you fear we are too late? To stop this?"
"It is never too late to stop Dark Magic. Look at this. This isn't really here, this shelf." She tapped a hoof against one of the binders and felt something move. But it wasn't the binder.
Luna nodded and said, "Then I'm not the only one. I noticed that earlier. There is a veil over this. But we cannot lift it because of Twilight's magical security in here."
Celestia sighed and looked back down to the action below. Twilight has so much to explain.
After a grueling but productive two hours, Dawn slammed the binder shut and stood in her chair.
"Alright! I'm ready!" She announced.
Everyone gathered around her and focused on her hoof pointing to the portal. "The keys create interloping energies that collide with each other at certain points to modulate magic when those points are triggered. This controller uses combinations for these buttons as the triggers."
She pointed to the very top and said, "The first one up is Purple. Me." She reached into her protective suit and pulled out the Purple and red glowing pearl she had around her neck. She placed it into the hooves of a Guard who quickly flew up into the air. His reflection bounced off the portal's face until he stopped at the top.
His eyes anxiously scanned the edge until he saw it. A tiny point on this huge gold face that could have been easily missed from a mere three feet away. Using both of his hooves, he slowly pushed the pearl in and triggered another harmless chain of events.
The portal glowed a brighter hue briefly then the purple lights across the front cleared and solidified into a solid line from the very Pearl through the center of a carved out circle all the way to the bottom where another Pearl was supposed to be placed. The only line on the disk. The machine in front of them beeped loudly for a solid two seconds. Then all the buttons colored purple switched on and off.
"Oh boy," Dawn whispered. This was all a little much for her. So much in fact she was getting dizzy and anxious just watching the lights dance. But she pressed on. "Okay, next is red."
Soon, Red was placed on a few inches away from the Purple-Red and overlapped over the energy lines with its own. Along with Blue, Green, White, Gold, Purple, Yellow, Orange, Silver, Gray, Pink, and Black. Now, the machine was up and running. All the keys were in place and their bodies glowed from the confusing paths of colored energy coursing over the gold and into the control panel.
King Madun walked up to fresh Dawn and asked, "Now what?"
"Uhhh, now we have to... Turn on the mechanics to get this thing turning. And that is..." Dawn flipped open the binder with her magic and rapidly turned to another page to read a bit more. She reached her hoof over the rest of the controls and touched a single fader at the very top. "Right here. Once we turn this on, we have to level everything out by pressing these colors in a specified sequence. Then the door will be opened."
Madun grabbed the binder to hold while Fresh Dawn did her thing. The fader was slowly pushed up. The slab of glowing gold creaked and groaned loudly with age. Then began to slowly rotate and pick up speed counter-clockwise. The lights began to dance through the air in a brilliance of colors, bathing their bodies in shifting neon hues among the darkness. The sound of an engine blasted their ears with its loud roar. Wind from an unknown origin blew manes askew.
Balance out the energy. Dawn followed the voice in her mind and started working on the pattern. She jabbed on the buttons in front of her in a single long sequence she managed to remember. And yelled, "Red, blue, purple, yellow, purple, silver, yellow, green, yellow, orange, white, black!"
The Portal immediately flashed brighter and forced them to cover their eyes. The face of the speeding gold wheel was a pure white and the wind was forcing their eyes to be covered entirely until it slowly began to die away. Allowing space for a deep dark hole to takeover.
The light had gone down and all had uncovered their eyes to see...
"TWILIGHT!!" Madun yelled.
There she was. Smiling with her eyes closed and long wings outstretched behind her out of view. Maheera was a few feet away from her, facing Twilight's horn a few centimeters from her face held in the air by her chains connected to something they couldn't see. They were possibly endless. But they were in something they couldn't understand.
So that's what she looked like in person. No doubt she was bigger than her, but despite that, the similarities were undeniable.
Instead of the darkness like they anticipated, she slept within the warm embrace of something purple. Something that had cracks and was definitely hard like glass. Twilight and Maheera both. Trapped.
Madun turned to Celestia and asked over the engine maintaining the spell, "How do we get her out?!"
"I don't know! We can try and combat the spell, but we don't want to risk hurting Twilight!"
"Well we need to—" The King was interrupted when the purple "glass" suddenly shifted and moved to attract attention. They suspected. They were wrong.
A single sharp thorn of that stuff suddenly shot out straight from the center for the control panel and impaled right into one of the controls in front of Psera's Princess. Dawn screamed and jumped out of her seat before more shot out into random areas that forced everyone to take cover. One shot straight into a camera sitting on a tripod. That was the end of that amount of evidence unless they could salvage the footage.
Sunset and Starlight ran for the machine that Sassy Twilight was on top of earlier and jumped over just in time for a huge one to come sailing straight into it.
Madun grabbed Dawn and ran for cover through the screaming ponies while the Symbiote crawled out of the portal. The control panel was completely taken over within seconds by this purple "goo-glass" while the Guards did what they could to maintain it. Which actually just meant shoot at and slice it. But regardless of what they did, they were forced back as it continued to heal.
Celestia recognized this from her position underneath another steel table across from Madun's. Twilight's living brain-stuff. The material she threw in there.
"Everyone fall back, fall back!!" Captain Smalls ordered. A single spike shot straight for her chest coming really close before Luna did the one thing that ended this entire project. She teleported in, grabbed Smalls and teleported out.
Immediately, the entire lab lit up with light blue runes. Everything was covered, the equipment, the tables, the lights, the machines, all of it.
Despite the crawling purple mass of death all over the place, all attention was now focused on the runes. All Pserateps, Equestrians, Hippogriffs, everyone just froze and eyed the runes. All Tartarus just broke loose.
Cadance shared a look with Luna and mouthed, "Oh no."
A single shot of Purple from the high ceiling soaring straight for Queen Novo pushed everyone to start running around and take cover. Flurry Heart screamed and slid under a table with her father before even more shots rang out all around her. The magic even hit the purple mass and actually caused a fire. The calm atmosphere now hosted a thunderstorm of magic.
Madun hid down behind his men and yelled, "We need to get out of here! Now!"
"What?!!" Celestia yelled from across. "What about Twilight?!"
"We'll return once everything is calm, but—" An explosion that rocked the lab urged everyone to duck before the chaos grew worse. The magic from the portal started to target the runes. A single spike shattered one to bits and pieces while the runes fought back. "We can't save her if we can't save ourselves first!! Now let's go!!"
With his daughter in his hooves, he ran out with his soldiers and took to the sky amidst all of the rain and terror. The rest of the Pserateps followed shortly after, leaving only the foreign ponies to make up their minds.
Sadly, Celestia casted one last glance to Twilight among all the fire and explosions. Sitting peacefully in her self-made prison. She sighed and whispered, "I'm sorry, Twilight. We'll come back, I promise." Then ran out and flew up with Sunset and Starlight in her hold followed by the rest of them.
If they would have stayed a little bit longer, they would have seen Twilight's eyes slowly crack open and train to her lab. At all the destruction. At all the screaming. At the rising sound of the portal growing out of control. Then with a subtle push, the aura around her horn glowed.
Halfway there, Luna looked to her right and gasped. One of those purple things were coming straight for her. Luna was about to teleport. So close. But the rain of fire hit her before the spikes could. She yelled out from the burning. The intensity of this magic. It felt like lava from the Dragon Lands. Her cry in agony was heard only by one ear.
Celestia slid into the safety of the Golden Hallway and turned around in terror. "Luna!!" She yelled. Then reared up and doubled back across the golden floor into the rain, despite the cries telling her to stop. She would not lose her sister to this. Not like this.
Despite getting hit multiple times, she flew low and back onto the ground. "Luna, where are you?!!" She yelled.
"Celestia!!" Celestia ran towards the pained voice where the table hiding her sister was and jumped behind it. Luna had a massive burn on her right wing seething in pain.
"Luna! Luna, I'm here, I'm here!" Celestia cried hectically. Oh Faust it was bad. She wouldn't be flying for awhile. Her fur here was burned off with a deep black mark.
An explosion behind them forced her to cover her sister's body with her own. Debris reigned down on top of her. Debris that was... Books? She grabbed one and looked at it. One of Twilight's spell books. This place was falling apart. Buck. Another explosion followed by another made her realize there was no other way to escape except to teleport up to the top. And she didn't nearly know the layout of this place.
She looked down to Luna and tried to create a shield with sadness in her eyes. Surviving this was next to impossible. Luna knew exactly what would happen. She nodded and said, "At least we found her."
"...yes, Luna."
Then everything stopped. All the noise, explosions, everything just stopped. Celestia widened her eyes and looked over the table protecting them. All the magic was frozen. As if the air stopped them and time itself. No movement, solid as ice.
"...Celestia..." A faint voice whispered. Celestia gasped and followed the source through the bookshelves, the tables, the mess made to the one pony this was centered around. To Queen Twilight. Lying on the ground in front of the Control Panel shooting them with a small smile covered in bruises, that purple membrane, and a shut eye. "...you have ten seconds to evacuate."