Twilight Sparkle had been working overtime lately, but finally most if not all of the Canterlot refugees had been settled in. Some of them had moved to other nearby towns to stay with relatives, or to get away from the clutter in Ponyville. Things sped up quite a lot since Cadence and Shining Armor arrived to assist her. She had just finished one last meeting with the mayor and was on her way back to the library. Spike dutifully walked by her side, carrying a clipboard.
"That just about covers it for today." the young dragon said with a yawn. It wasn't even that late yet, but the both of them felt pretty tired.
"Thank goodness." Twilight replied. "I really need a break..."
As they returned home, they spotted the resident human writing away in his journal. He looked up to greet them. "You two look terrible." Matt said.
Twilight smiled slightly and rolled her eyes. "You really know how to make a girl feel special."
Matt chuckled softly. "I'm sorry, but I know a thing or two about not getting enough sleep. I'm starting to get worried about the both of you."
Spike had been rummaging around for something to eat. "Eh, don't worry about us. We're pretty much done now." he said.
Twilight sat next to the human. "Where's everypony else?" she asked, noticing her family was absent.
"Oh, I think they went out to check up on some ponies. Something about friends in Ponyville."
"I see." Twilight replied. "I guess that... gives us some time to ourselves..." she said, leaning against the human.
Matt felt his body stiffen up immediately at the sudden contact. "I,uh... yeah, I guess it does." he said, locking eyes with her.
"Sheesh, get a room you two." Spike said, eating a large gemstone. After he eat the rock whole, he belched green flame. "Excuse me. Wait a second..." he added, noticing a small scroll and picking it up.
"Is that..." Matt began.
"A letter from the princess?!" Twilight finished.
…...
A little while earlier, Princess Celestia was looking out her window longingly. A sigh escaped her lips as she had finally accepted how helpless she was. She had begun to feel worse and worse, knowing that her people were suffering and there was nothing she could do. She knew that Twilight and her friends could probably contain the chaos, but she still felt terrible that there was nothing she could do.
She heard a disturbance from somewhere behind her and turned to see Gabriel sitting in a chair, drinking out of a green bottle again.
"I'm sorry, did I distract you from your moping?" he asked.
"Yes, you did." Celestia replied. "What do you want? My dinner was already brought to me by one of your monsters."
"Monsters? That's harsh, they were people once." he responded, taking another drink.
"If you only came to pester me, I'm going to go back to my 'moping'." she said, turning away from the human.
"I'm trying to remember why I came in here in the first place..." he said with a hiccup. "Oh right! I wanted to tell you about next week."
"Next week? What, plan on celebrating Hearth's Warming?" Celestia asked.
"In my own special way, yes I do. My gift to the world will finally be unveiled. War."
Celestia felt her stomach drop. "War?"
"War! Equestria will wage a war against the rest of the world!" he said, drinking once again.
"And how are you planning to do that? Equestria doesn't have a proper military force." she said.
"Oh, the ponies will serve. If they don't, they'll see no mercy from the edge of my blade."
"Why would you do such a thing? What benefit do you gain by fighting the world?" she asked, flabbergasted.
"Ah, now that is a simple answer. I gain power. Every foe that falls increases my strength. I will sit atop my throne and control the ebb and flow of the entire world. And I'll do it all from your kingdom."
Celestia had lost her composure at this point, and aside from every other insane thing he had said she still had no idea why he was so upset with her.
"What could I have possibly done to you to cause this? Please, at least answer that truthfully."
He placed his bottle on the floor and stood from his seat. "It has been nine years, nine long years. You banished me from Equestria and forced me to walk the earth, never to return. You took my home, my friends, my family. You took everything from me. All over an accident, something that happened beyond my control. Nearly every day I wandered I felt the hatred burn in me. Hatred for you. Hatred for everything in Equestria I once loved. And that's the truth."
Celestia had no memory of anything the man before her was saying, but the rage and venom that dripped from his every word told that even if she could disprove him, his conviction was too strong to get him to stop.
"Then why not just end me and be done with it? My people don't deserve to suffer like this." she said, regaining her calm.
A wild laugh followed by a toothy grin erupted from the human. "Because, Celestia, I'm going to do to you what you did to me. I'll rob you of everything. I'll tear your world apart. Then, and only then, will you be allowed to die."
The human King turned away and grabbed his bottle, taking another swig at the mystery liquid within. "I have one last friend to drop in on. You may resume 'moping'." he said, slamming the door on his way out.
Celestia was trying her hardest to process what she was just told. Equestria was to be militarized and would wage war on the whole world. She would be kept close by to watch the carnage as a part of Gabriel's revenge. Revenge for events she couldn't recall occurring in the first place. Her feeling of powerlessness had peaked; she was prepared to give up hope. If only there was some way she could contact the outside, contact Twilight Sparkle and warn her of the mad King's plan.
She noticed the pile of unused scrolls next to her ink pot and quill, her usual means of communication to her pupil. Though the barrier should halt all magic cast from within, she had to try something. She wrote, in detail, about where she was being held, Gabriel's plan, and a desperate plea to stop him. When she finished, she focused whatever power she had left to try and send the letter off. The violet bars of magic began to glow as she could feel herself being restrained by their power.
Miraculously, the scroll vanished. She had somehow succeeded. The pain coursing through her horn as well as the rest of her body made her collapse, but she did so with a smile on her face.
…...
Hours later, Twilight Sparkle lay awake in bed, staring up at her ceiling. Upon reading the princess' letter, she had a lot of things to process. The knowledge that the usurper King's plan to reek havoc across the globe in the name of revenge that would start on Hearth's Warming day had sent her head spinning.
She had known that help from the princesses was unlikely, but now she knew that the last hope for Equestria rested on her and her friends. She had sent Owlowiscious out with letters to her friends, inviting them all over the next day to discuss what to do with the knowledge they now had.
"Can't sleep?" asked the human who lay next to her.
"Nope..." she replied, turning from the ceiling to face her human partner.
"I know the responsibility must be weighing on you pretty harshly." he said.
"You can say that again." she confirmed.
"i know you'll come through. While I wasn't here at the time, I've heard the stories of you and the others thwarting evil before. Gabriel should be no different."
"Thanks, Matt. I just wish I had your confidence. The way Princess Celestia wrote that letter... everything down to her formatting told me she was scared. I haven't seen her like that in ages."
"It's only natural to be scared in the situation she's in. I know she believes in you, just like I do." Matt said reassuringly.
"Well, knowing you believe in me makes me feel better. I promise I won't disappoint you."
"That's the spirit. Now get some sleep, with everything you've been doing around here you deserve it."
She smiled as she did as he suggested, and went back to trying to fall asleep.
Suddenly, she felt as if she was falling, eyes shooting open in fright. She looked around to see that she hadn't fallen anywhere, she was still in bed. Although something concerning was that Matt had vanished. She assumed that he had gotten up to do something, but she could hear a faint sound coming from downstairs.
She got out of bed and headed down. "Matt?" she called in a whisper, not wanting to wake anypony else. She then noticed that Shining Armor and Cadence weren't asleep in the main room. They were nowhere to be found, either. She noticed the door to her basement was wide open and she could swear for a moment she saw a tall silhouette descending the stairs in the darkness.
She followed after the silhouette, finding the lights in the basement not functioning. She lit up the basement with her horn and called out again, only to be greeted by the same sound she heard upon waking up. It was some sort of pulsing or beat in a slow rhythm, and it was much louder downstairs. She noticed next that the bookshelf concealing the entrance to the Undercroft was wide open. Accompanying the slow beat was now what sounded like footsteps, not hoofsteps, from the tunnel beyond.
She nervously swallowed before following after them. The only person she could be following was her romantic partner, and whatever he was doing was highly unusual. A light at the end of the tunnel revealed that the Undercroft was still in the same state it had been the last time she was there, with an odd, out of place light shining down to one book on the floor. The book was charred black from obvious burns, leaving the cover horribly disfigured. She reached out to touch the maimed book, only to hear the slow beat get much louder directly behind her. When she turned, she found nothing, not even the entrance she used to get there. Upon re-orientating herself, she found that she wasn't in the Undercroft anymore. All features of the room she was in had vanished, the strange pale light overhead the only source she could see.
She amplified the magic in her horn to make it glow brighter, finding the pitch-black void around her swallowing all the light from it. The slow beating sound now sounded as if it was right in front of her. She squinted to see if there was anything to be seen, when she spotted two faint, glowing red orbs in the darkness. As she spotted them, they began to glow brighter and trailed away, leaving a streak of red light.
"Nine years..." called a voice from beyond the blackness, a voice she recognized as the usurper King's. "Nine years since I've been able to see you, to speak with you."
Twilight felt her body quiver as the slow beat and red lights began to move around her. "B-but we've never met." she said softly.
"I wanted to spare you this, I truly did. But just as you failed me, I must fail you." he said.
"I failed you...?" she asked.
The slow beat began to beat faster. "When the ponies of Equestria called for my banishment and Celestia complied, you did nothing. None of you did."
"Nine years ago I was just a filly, what did you expect me to do?" she asked, confused by what he was even talking about.
"I know Celestia sent you a letter. She told you about my plan, did she not?" Gabriel replied, completely changing the subject.
"How did you know about that?"
"I'll give you one chance. Just one." he said, ignoring her. "Join me now and you and your friends will be spared my wrath. I won't even force you to fight my war."
"I-I can't... I won't. What you plan to do, it's wrong. You can't just expect me to join you when you plan to do something so awful. If something did happen to you like you said, then I'm sorry. But you shouldn't take it out on all these innocent ponies, and all the other people of the world."
The lights stopped dancing around her and began to moved toward her. The beating grew faster and faster, almost like a heartbeat. Gabriel stepped forward from the shadows.
"I've been lost before, and I have been led astray. But this path I follow, these fires of destruction are my choice, and I've been seduced by the light of the flames. The only thing that will stop my constant pain is to make everyone else weep with me." he turned away from the young princess, back into the shadows. A snapping sound could be heard.
…...
Twilight jolted up from bed. Panic overwhelmed her before she realized everything seemed to be normal. The human sleeping next to her confirmed that what she just experienced must have been a nightmare. She cuddled close to him, partially for warmth and partially to feel more secure.
Despite what happened seemingly like a dream, the idea that Gabriel knew Celestia had sent her a letter sent shivers up her spine. Could it be possible he invaded her dream somehow? She decided to get some rest and discuss it with the others tomorrow.
…...
Gabriel sat upon the edge of the bed he had decided to claim in one of Canterlot castle's many accommodations. His armor and sword rested nearby, haphazardly thrown into a pile. He was flipping through a malformed book, burned black and brittle. Amethyst entered the room wordlessly, crawling onto the be and resting her head in his lap.
He looked down at her curiously. "I sense you want attention?" he said.
"Besides that. Do you think we got through to any of them?" Amethyst asked.
"I'd like to think we got through, just a bit, to all six of them." he replied, turning back to the book in his hand.
"So, we're still going though with it?"
"We are."