Prologue: Bloody Awakening
The cool night air blew through the palace, rippling through Luna’s blue mane with a gentle gust. Luna always enjoyed the refreshing feeling of night air; it gave her solace from her thoughts, and her mind.
Things had indeed been hectic since she was returned to her true form after she had been released from her imprisonment. Tales of odd times in Ponyville, and even the return of an old foe had taken its toll on the young Princess’ mind.
Luna sighed. Her mind was restless, as turbulent as the skies before a coming storm. Shaking her head, she walked down the hall to the throne room.
Suddenly, she froze. Lingering in the air was a scent she knew well; the scent of wild magic. The wind rushed through the halls, seeming to be sucked into the throne room. Whatever was going on, the throne room was the source.
Breaking into a gallop, Luna ran towards the throne room, slamming the doors open. However, when she searched the brilliant, decorated room, she saw… nothing.
Not a soul was in the throne room in the depths of night, and only a few braziers were lit on the edges of the aisle to provide illumination for the cleaning ponies in case they needed to work on the white stone that formed the floor.
Then, Luna stopped. The magic lingered around her, brushing by her like the icy chill of winter. Whatever had caused the resurgence of power was still there, if only partially.
Luna walked around the room, examining every stone, every portion of the room, before she noticed something strange.
In the corner, a magic circle was burnt and used, the remains charred and blackened. The runes drawn around the symbol were meaningless to her, but she did know somepony who would understand what the strange symbols meant.
“Star Dancer.” Luna said under her breath. Head Archivist for Celestia, and the Keeper of the Grand Archives, hidden deep within the bowels of the palace. If anypony could make out what these runes mean, it was him.
Luna studied the runes for a moment longer, and then stopped. Something had changed about their twisted, glowing shapes.
Sure enough, they were fading. The shared black lines were disappearing, slowly, but surely. Luna quickly traced out each of the runes in her mind, trying to remember every detail before they disappeared.
Finally, they were gone. Luna looked at the spot where the circle was moments before, and let out a breath. Nothing remained, not a trace. Not even the smell of magic remained.
Something was going on.
Running down the hall while the runes in her mind were still fresh, she ran into her room, grabbing a quill and parchment and hurriedly scratching them down on paper. She managed to remember the runes as she drew a detailed picture, and quickly rolling the scroll up and placing it in a saddlebag nearby.
This could not wait; she had to see Star Dancer immediately. Informing her sister would come immediately after; Celestia might even be able to give some insight into the matter.
Hurrying out of her room, she began walking down the stairs to the palace gates. Normally, she would fly, but flying would gather attention she would prefer to avoid in the dead of night. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she sniffed.
The scent of magic had returned, the feral, sickly sweet smell burning her nostrils. Whatever that spell had done, or created, was around here, and it was close.
Luna lowered her horn, preparing a simple defensive spell. Whatever this… thing was, she would not be caught unawares. With no time to prepare anything more powerful than a containment spell, Luna prayed she would be alright.
Suddenly, Luna heard a noise to her right, and turned. A shadowed pony was standing in the moonlight, obscured by a large cloak over their shoulders. “Who are you?” Luna asked, backing up a step.
The figure didn’t answer, but instead turned away from her, walking down the corridor. The pony’s movements were erratic, hardly able to keep on his hooves as he walked down the moonlit corridor.
Luna’s ears flattened. Whatever or whomever this was, she would not allow it to get deeper into the palace.
Leaping over the pony, using her wings for lift and landing on the other side of it, she lowered her horn. “Answer me, or I will cast this spell.”
The pony shivered for a moment, making Luna wonder if it was the threat, or the chill of the night air. Luna stepped back for a second, and then, time seemed to stop. A tiny voice whispered on the wind, barely audible:
“Who… am I?”
Without repeating himself, the pony leapt from the moonlight faster than even Luna had ever seen anypony move before, the cloak falling to the ground and revealing a deep, blood-red coat. The pony’s eyes could now clearly be seen, and what Luna saw sent shivers in the very depths of her mind.
Instead of normal eyes, the pony’s eyes were a deep, all-encompassing maroon, devoid of pupils and all other features, leaving his eyes as a deep and empty as a pool of blood.
Luna shivered involuntarily. She had never encountered anything like this before. The pony before her reeked with feral magical energy; untamed, wild magic that reminded Luna of the few times she had visited the Everfree Forest.
The blood red pony lashed out, revealing wings on his back as he did. The pony’s wings cut air above her, and Luna realized the pony was wearing Wingblades in his feathers.
Wingblades were a weapon used by rare, highly-trained members the Royal Guard and the entire team of the Wonderbolts, the feathers gilded with a rare metal and sharpened to a deadly point. The feathers could be removed and attached at will, held in place with a small enchanted buckle inside the down on a pony’s wing, or, with the case of the wonderbolts’ wingblades, magically adhered.
Luna immediately retreated. She was unarmed, but for her magic, and a Pegasus with a wingblade, especially one proficient in the Blade Arts, the art of the wingblade, could be a deadly threat.
The pony stepped forward towards Luna, a twisted smile of pleasure upon his face.
Luna released the containment spell, magical chains shooting from her horn and grabbing the blood red stallion around the wings, legs, and torso. The black chains, colored by Luna’s own internal energy, squeezed the pony tightly, forcing him to gasp for breath.
“How dare you attack one of the Royal Pony Sisters!” Luna shouted, walking up to the bound pony. “Who do you think you are, challenging an alicorn?”
Suddenly, the wild magic began to coalesce around the pony’s head. Magic blowing aside the pony’s long, platinum-blonde mane, Luna looked across his forehead for any signs of a horn.
There wasn’t one.
Instead, a large ruby crystal was set in the pony’s forehead, taking the same spot that a horn normally would have. It glowed with a bright light, as if it truly was a horn. Luna gasped, diving to the side of the hall.
The wild magic seemed to explode with voracity, shattering the chains and cracking the floor beneath the stallion, sending chunks of rock flying in every direction.
The blood-red pony spoke with another maniacal grin. “Royal Pony Sisters? If this is the best this country has to offer, perhaps his plans will change.”
Luna groaned, brushing some rocks off of her side with her wing. “His? Not yours? Just who are you, and who is your Master?”
The red pony grinned wider. “I… am change. And my Master is someone who does not wish to make himself known, at this moment.”
The magic around him began whipping up, more powerful than before, as the pony stood before her, every inch of him reeking of the same darkness as Nightmare Moon and Discord, and giving off that sickly sweet feral magic with every movement.
Luna seized the moment as the red pony was charging his spell, kicking dust from the ground into the pony’s eyes.
The red pony roared with anger and pain, rubbing his eyes as the dust blinded him. Luna rushed towards the pony, launching several arcane blasts towards him, forcing him to step back a few steps.
“Hahahahaha.”
Luna stopped. The pony was… laughing?
“The Princess of the Night is quite a feisty one.” The red pony said, his laughter continuing as he finished wiping the dust out of his eyes. “But even that will not save you from his wrath. A new era is coming, Princess, and you are powerless to stop him. That is his message to you, and your entire kingdom.”
With that, the pony turned, leaping through one of the large stained glass windows, shattering it and sending glass flying down to the courtyard, three stories below. Luna ran to the window, and saw the pony land, his wings outstretched to soften the landing.
“Guards! Stop that pony!” Luna cried, motioning for the guards in the courtyard. The guards stepped forward, two armed with spears and the third preparing a spell from his horn.
The red pony laughed again, and the wild magic began howling around him. The guards stepped back, unsure, and the red pony cast his spell.
The spell picked up the three guards, knocking them back heavily and sending them crashing into the walls and pillars of the courtyard. Even from three stories above them, Luna could hear the sickening crunch of bones breaking.
The stallion laughed, his laughter a deep, merciless tone that reminded Luna of her time as Nightmare Moon. Leaping from the window, Luna landed in the courtyard with a flap of her wings. The red pegasus turned to her, his smile as terrible as it was before.
“I enjoyed this little game, Princess, but I believe my time is up. Perhaps next time, you will try more than simple magics on me. Unicorns and Alicorns are not the only ones to have the call of magic within them,” he said, looking at the sky. With another shimmer of magic, the crystal released a spell, filling the courtyard with a deep mist. When the mist cleared, the pegasus had vanished.
The Royal Guard arrived moments later, swarming from the barracks in the courtyard. Luna noticed the lights flicker to life in her sister’s room, above the throne room, and sighed.
A few minutes later, the Royal Guard had taken the three wounded to the medical wing, and Celestia had arrived, clad in a brilliant white and gold night robe. Celestia walked up to Luna slowly, and stopped, the two alicorns staring at each other.
“What happened here, little sister?” Celestia asked, looking at the shattered pillar and the cracks in the wall.
Luna shook her head, recounting the events of a few minutes prior. With each sentence, Celestia’s eyes widened, until the story was finished.
“Another alicorn? Here?” Celestia asked, looking around.
Luna nodded. “He… wasn’t an alicorn. There was something… wrong with him. His magic felt… feral. Untamed. Not like ours. It was like I was facing down a fully-grown dragon, or an Ursa Major. There was a crystal that seemed to drip feral magic in his forehead, where a normal unicorn’s horn would be.”
Celestia shivered at the thought. Fully grown dragons were immune to magic, thanks to the chaotic natural magic within them. Ursa Majors were similar, but not the same; the powerful celestial magic that made their fur transparent was the reason for their strength and size.
“Are you sure?” Celestia asked.
Luna nodded. “I would never joke about things like this, Tia. You know that. But… there’s something else.”
Celestia looked down at her sister.
“Even when he was attacking me, I could feel… fear. Not mine, but his. His magic was confused. He never used anything more than simple counter spells, things that even a unicorn child would know. He used them well, but… it was nothing that showed the power of the howling magic that warped around him.”
Celestia nodded, and looked around. The window detailing Twilight and her friends’ defeat of Discord had been shattered, leaving only a few shards near the top of the window itself to catch the moonlight.
“Captain Shining.” Celestia said, turning to a Royal Guard with a large ruby in the chest plate of his armor. The white stallion saluted. “Yes, your majesty?”
“Search the palace. If what my sister said is true, then he should still be within the palace walls. He did not leave by the front gate, because the guards there did not report anything out of the ordinary, nor flew out of the mist, or the palace’s wards would have been activated. That leaves one possibility. He is still in the palace. Send soldiers to every corner of this building. Find that pegasus. If you find him, alert the rest of the guards. Do NOT engage.”
Shining Armor nodded, and immediately began ordering his ponies, sending them in groups of three down the corridors. Celestia watched several groups leave, and then turned back to Luna.
“Are you alright? Are you injured?”
Luna shook her head. I have a bruise from when he broke from his chains, but for some reason, even though he had ample opportunity, he didn’t finish me. The worst he did was send those three guards flying, and even then, he didn’t kill them.”
Celestia nodded at the implication. “Luna, this complicates things. An assassin? Here, of all places? This… complicates things. Especially an assassin with both the ability of flight and magic.”
Luna rubbed her forehead gently. “I don’t understand. Pegasi cannot cast magic; they have never been able to. But that pony was undoubtedly a Pegasus. What is that crystal?”
Celestia shook her head. “I have never heard of such a thing, a crystal that can give magic to pegasi. Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake? Perhaps you saw a crown, or some sort of ornament, and his horn was hidden inside his mane.”
“Tia! I’m not making this up! He didn’t have a horn, but you see what magic he was able to cast here!”
The guards returned a few moments, later, the leaders of the patrols quickly reported their futile searches. Some guards had seen flickers of movement, or something out of the corner of their eyes, but each time they had checked, there was nopony around them besides themselves.
Celestia nodded. “Could he have gotten out of the palace any other way?”
Shining Armor shook his head.
“Keep searching until morning. Make sure he isn’t here. I don’t want to call off the search only to have him able to attack again.” Celestia said sternly.
The Captain saluted quickly, ordering the guards to continue their search. Celestia returned to Luna, who was looking around the courtyard.
“Sister… there is something else,” Luna said quietly.
Holding up the papers with the runes, Luna saw Celestia’s eyes widen. “Where did you see these?”
“In the throne room,” Luna replied. Celestia shook her head. “Those runes are part of a powerful teleportation magic. Now we know how he got into this castle. But that leaves one question… who created this side of the spell for him to use?”
Luna realized the implications of this information.
“We have a traitor.”