Luna's skill with dream shaping was rightly legendary among the chiroptera. Thousands of bat-winged members of the Dreamguard had sustained equinity's subconscious minds during her absence only through perseverance and sheer bloody-mindedness. She turned back the centuries with scarcely a care. Tropical foliage bloomed around them, thickening overhead until the difference between night and day became moot. The songs of a thousand birds and ten thousand insects mingled together with the bass rumbles of larger creatures slinking through the jungle.
Streetlamp, unofficial Royal Inquisitor—mostly because Celestia refused to reinstate the official position—just sat and watched. He was well familiar with how his princess indulged in theatrics.
"The southern wilds have been called many names throughout history," said Luna. The view rose above the trees to take in stepped pyramids along a chain of peaks. "Some called it the Llamazon, after those who built the mountain temples." Back down, to struggling explorers in khaki and pith helmets, hacking at the plants with mouth-held machetes. 'Others named it Inch-Along, for the struggle to navigate its thick undergrowth." She looked up, and above the explorers, a hundred slit-pupiled eyes gleamed like gold. "Your ancestors, good Streetlamp, called it 'Home,' as worthy a name as any other. But we shall think of it as the Forbidden Jungle for now, since this is the tale of how the folly of pony made it forbidden.
"But we do not begin with our own folly." The jungle faded into mist. "We must first turn to the minotaurs."
Luna looked to Streetlamp. "Do you still know the saying in this time? 'Where there is a maze, there is Minos?'"
He nodded. "Never understood it myself, but I've definitely heard it."
"It is literal truth, you know." This time, the mist gave way to countless skyscrapers that made the Diarchy State Building look like a treehouse, all pressed together until they formed the twisting walls of a vast maze. As Streetlamp tilted his head back, he didn't see a sky, just more impossibly tangled pathways. "The minotaur’s great labyrinth-city winds in directions even I cannot fathom, where neither dreams nor stars travel. Perhaps Pinkie Pie could navigate its streets, but I fear what might come of leaving her there without supervision." Luna shuddered at the thought.
"Still, Minos was not always a city tucked behind the world." The walls parted, letting the ponies look down on a vast plain. Towns popped up from the landscape like mushrooms, then spread like mold on an orange. "Once, near the whole continent of Torozon was urban sprawl, cities growing unchecked, touching together, squeezing against the scant farms that struggled to feed the ever-growing populace. The minotaurs raced ahead of other races in knowledge, but not in wisdom." The view moved to the coast, where great, many-masted ships cast off. "Soon, with their great barques and the first steel the world had seen, they set out for other shores, lest they suffocate in their own magnificence."
The ships sailed across the Celestial Ocean, pausing at a chain of volcanic islands. "The Mighty Helm recorded their brushes with minotaur ships, at first thinking them a fleet of Naglfars, a sign of Ragnarok come early." Longships met the minotaur boats, and shouts and metal shrieks echoed across the water. Soon enough, the minotaurs steered clear of the archipelago. "Doughty as they were, they gave their would-be raiders a bloody nose and sent them seeking more hospitable waterways. If the minotaurs had had cannons…"
Luna took a moment to consider that before shaking her head. "Well, the world might look very different were that the case."
The minotaurs continued across the sea until they made landfall once more. "In time, they arrived at what was to them a paradise of impossible plenty, untouched by intelligent hands." The crews disembarked, gazing around in wonder.
"Here they were strictly accurate. Your ancestors had hooves, after all. They watched as these strange creatures stripped the shore bare and piled felled trees into what seemed a needlessly vast structure." The shadows seemed to peel away from the trees as a crude fort went up, curious ultrasonic chitters reaching Streetlamp's ears.
"Your Highness," he said, "I have to ask, how do you know all of this?"
She didn't look away from the scene, watching as the chiroptera debated and the minotaurs refined their outpost. "Some, I was there for. Much I pulled from dreaming minds after the fact. And only I could, for there is a key part of the tale I had not yet mentioned."
"And that would be?"
"One of the ways the minotaurs dealt with their rising population pressure." On cue, the expedition leader emerged from the fort. He was almost definitely the leader, what with being a foot taller than the other minotaurs, wearing ruffles and a cravat, and having entirely blood-red eyes and fangs that jutted out of his mouth even when it was shut.
Streetlamp boggled at him for a good ten seconds. "What."
"It was once a religious rite, a way to preserve wisdom as well as knowledge for the ages." Luna sighed as smaller visions of altered minotaurs in simple robes preaching to petitioners gave way to ones in elaborate suits ordering subordinates. "But that wisdom was swept away by the rush of growing generations, and soon the minotaurs used vampirism solely as a way to simplify logistics. The food chain became part of their social structure, nobles fed by the blood of serfs."
"That's..." Streetlamp shook his head. "I don't even know how to describe it."
"Absurd? Callous? Horrifying? The modern minotaurs would agree with you. There is a reason so many spend their whole lives in Minos. The old shame still stings, even now." Luna's expression twisted into something unreadable. "I cannot help but empathize with them.
"But I digress. Even putting aside the horrors the minotaurs inflicted on themselves, the magics used had an... unexpected reaction with those of the chiroptera."
The minotaur vampire strode across the beach and into the jungle. Once he crossed an unseen line, the squeaking argument fell silent, a thousand pupils contracted to thin slits, and a swarm of furious, screeching ponies descended upon him like a blanket of night.
"Felt that first hand today." Streetlamp shuddered at the memory. "So you're saying one of those old bulls is skulking around the Whitetail?"
"Oh no. My sister personally incinerated the last bloodlord four hundred years ago. One of the first things I checked upon my return."
After a few thoughtful moments, Streetlamp said, "You've lost me, Your Highness."
"The chiroptera had the advantage of surprise with the first fort." The swarm flooded over the walls, chasing the minotaurs back to their ships, which soon vanished over the horizon. "But the survivors still returned home to tell of both the crazed bat-horses and the treasure they guarded, and Torozon was getting no less crowded in the meantime. They did not force the issue with the Midgard Islands, not when they stood to gain so little."
New sails moved into view, and a lot more of them. "But the Forbidden Jungles were too rich a prize to surrender to what they saw as wild animals that went mad at the sight of their leaders. And so they returned, and this time they came prepared." Minotaurs disembarked, more heavily armed and armored. The vampires made the ships shake as they disembarked, geared up until they seemed like great iron golems.
The next assault didn't go nearly as well for the natives.
"After that, the chiroptera tried to act from a distance where they could think properly, employing more subtle tactics." Luna shook her head. "But as I said, mortal arts cannot find purchase in the dreams of the dead." The dream moved to altars deep in the jungle. "Some performed desperate acts of sacrifice to give rise to undying guardian beasts: Camazotz, Ahuizotl, the lesser Cipactli. But such creatures were ill-suited for assault, willful and proud. After a few attempts, they sulked away, prowling lost temples and insisting that was always their purpose." One by one, monsters stormed the new fort, were repelled, and sank back into the jungle like embarrassed cats.
Night fell, and the moon rose. "Finally, the ponies looked to the bright moon of dreams that lay to the north, remembering promises and prophecies of old. And that is when I entered the conflict. Naturally I did not do so unaided." New ships sailed into the natural harbor, along with troops marching in formation from the jungle. Another Luna spearhead the land forces.
The modern one sighed. "In time, that would be our folly."
"Somepony got curious?" said Streetlamp.
"Indeed. As we struggled against the minotaurs, some of our arcane researchers sought to understand the nature of the foe's champions." A group of unicorns gathered around a treasure chest right out of a storybook, save that it was filled with books and loose paper. "A seized collection of documents drove a permanent wedge between them and the chiroptera. Your ancestors wanted the papers destroyed, but one mare smuggled them back to Equestria." Even as a debate among the tribes raged, one mare snuck away, the chest on her back. "Relations between the tribes grew chilly from there, and the Jungles have been inhospitable to ponies not of your tribe ever since."
The focus shifted to that mare, rifling through the papers with an expression like a foal in a candy store. "After the war, Black Rose, cursed be her name, kept the knowledge close. She reverse-engineered the ritual at the earliest opportunity, but waited for the perfect moment to enact it." Outside of Black Rose's workshop, the sky grew dark. Luna glared at her with the kind of outright hate Streetlamp had rarely seen on anypony. "She selected my rebellion."
Luna took a deep breath before continuing. "The rest I know from study: Even as my sister banished me, Black Rose became the first pony vampire." A rainbow flared through the windows even as Black Rose concocted and downed a rust-colored potion. Nothing much happened to her, besides slightly sharper teeth and horn and darker coat.
Streetlamp hummed to himself. "The change is a lot more subtle in ponies."
"Indeed. She then tried to recruit an army to conquer Equestria in the Nightmare's name." Rose approached a troop of Night Guards kneeling before a stained-glass window of Luna. They turned and snarled at her, making her flee. "But your ancestors despised her as much as the minotaur bloodlords, and with them opposing her, she had no hope of recruiting for her rebellion.
"Rose fled to the darkest underbelly of equine society, destroying the secrets so no other could exploit them as she had. Her progeny have plagued the rest of equinity ever since, practicing unnatural hemomancies like what befell poor Strawberry Scoop." One final image played, of Rose drawing blood out through a pony's face and into her open mouth, before it faded and left only the dream realm to see.
"So, the perp was a vampire." Streetlamp plastered on a smirk. "Well, that only took, what, twenty minutes to say?"
Luna gave him a flat look. "Do you want the technique that will allow you to track said perpetrator through the sympathetic connection to his victims?"
The smirk slid into a sheepish grin. "If you'd be so kind, Your Highness."
"That's what I thought."
Streetlamp frowned. "Still, I've got to wonder why a vampire came to Ponyville."
"The equine mind is ill-equipped to spend eternity on the edge between life and death. The fiend is likely little more than a beast at this point. Concern yourself only with its destruction, Inquisitor."
"Again, your Highness, Ponyville."
Luna nodded. "True. I shall compose a writ of extermination, to make clear to Twilight Sparkle that this is no misguided friend-to-be. A courier will bring it to you shortly. Justice demands retribution, Inquisitor. Avenge Strawberry Scoop; your princess commands you."
Dear Mr. Lord Tirek,
I'm sorry to say that Mr. Corpuscle won't be able to deliver my mail anymore, because he's been eradicated by agents of the crown. The good news is I've mastered the teleportation ritual you included in your early letters! At least, I hope I have. Please answer soon so I know I didn't send this letter into Cerberus's mouth or something.
Anyway, you were right about relying to much on weak fools and go-betweens. Sure, a bunch of friends can get a lot done, but that's because they have plenty of backups and replacements. Relying on just one pony isn't going to end well. Or just six ponies.
So, what if a certain six ponies happened to get stuck in Tartarus while I was draining the magic from Equestria?
Your friend,
Cozy Glow