Twilight could not recall a time where the spires and turrets of Canterlot had failed to take her breath away. She was no stranger to them, having studied and lived there for years before her transition to Ponyville, but still, every morning, she would wake up, gaze outside at the sunrise peaking atop the glimmering figureheads and alicorn motifs and bask in a simple moment of unadulterated awe.
Before panicking over some upcoming test and burying her nose in a book for the rest of the day.
Suffice it to say, Twilight considered herself a fan of the city, as did most of Canterlot's residents and visitors. It struck a special chord in her heart, and when she arrived, every time she arrived, there was an image in her mind she expected it to fit. As she arrived via Luna's teleport tunnel, for the first time, Canterlot failed to fit that image.
“By all things good and green...” Applejack breathed, and Twilight could hear the horror in her voice.
They had arrived at the foot of the palace proper, and the gates had been leveled. Utterly destroyed. Beautiful filigree inlays had been devastated by some unknown force, and the marble blocks in which they had been crafted now lay about cracked and fractured. The inner palace doors, Twilight noticed as she raced past them toward the great hall, had been blown outward off their hinges and now lay in splintered fragments on the forward approach. Twilight broke from gallop and paused, looking around briefly.
“What are you waiting for, Twilight!?” Rainbow yelled as she shot past toward the palace interior. Luna had been leading the way, and paused at the fractured entrance to the Great Hall to look back at Twilight. Twilight gazed about at the shattered door, and the similarly devastated glass fragments strewn about the lawn. Something about it felt…off.
“S-Sorry! Coming!” she replied, giving the exterior mess one last cursory glance before setting off toward the palace interior.
“Oh maaaaan,” Pinkie Pie breathed, looking around, “and I thought WE messed this place up. This was one craaaaazy party.”
“I don't think anyone was celebrating anything here, Pinkie...” Rarity said, her voice soft, as though frightened to awaken whatever had caused all the damage.
The once spotless Great Hall of Canterlot now laid in ruin. Chunks of the overhead architecture were missing, having collapsed when the mighty beams that arched overhead to support them were destroyed. Twilight had seen ponies working on those beams before. They were centuries old, and twice as wide as she was. Whatever had destroyed them possessed truly horrific strength. Scorch marks littered the floor and splashed violently across the walls, and in the places where the fighting had been fiercest the solid marble blocks that made up the walls had erupted outward from the force of whatever had impacted them. Banners, hoof stitched and kept clean and beautiful for hundreds of years, lay strewn about the floor in tatters, and the famous carpet that led to Princess Celestia's position atop the stairs was torn and flung aside. It was, however, what was missing that made Twilight's heart ache the most, and she felt likewise from her link with Rarity, who was looking the same direction. The Princess was absent. Luna stood two steps below the top of the stairway where Celestia had ruled for eons, and stared at the empty spot on the floor. The others joined her, and for a quiet moment, the seven of them stood with eyes fixed on what amounted to the royal throne, as though willing its occupant to simply return to it, and dreading what could have removed her.
It was Fluttershy, curiously enough, that spoke up first. She looked over at Twilight and nodded toward the exterior portcullis. “You n-n-noticed it, right Twilight?” she stammered, finding her voice amongst her worry. “All the debris is outside the walls.”
“What does that mean?” Rarity asked, failing to notice the significance. “Somepony swept up the mess?”
“It means it wasn't a siege,” Luna replied flatly, looking around. “Were it an attack from beyond the palace battlements, the debris would lie within the walls.”
“Whoever attacked the palace, and the princess,” Twilight said, concluding Luna's thoughts, “did it from inside the palace. The fight was in here. All the damage on the walls, its all from something inside, firing outward.”
“Celestia.” Luna replied, answered the unasked question of the origin of the damage.
“The princess?” Rainbow asked, her voice pitched in disbelief, “Really? All… this?” Luna shot her a scowl. “I mean, I know she's big and all,” Rainbow continued, “but… can she really be this violent? I mean she's the princess.”
“Princess Celestia and I fought wars against Discord and his minions for decades,” the Moon Princess replied firmly. “I've watched her bring chaos to order with naught but righteous fury and force of will. I've stood beside her while opposing Generals kissed her hooves and offered her their fealty and servitude in return for mercy because she delivered unto them a reckoning,” Luna snarled the word, “the likes of which you would not believe. My sister would not have fallen without a fight.”
Twilight spoke up to spare Rainbow the harsh rebuttal. “Which means,” she said, “that Rarity was actually right. Somepony did sweep up. No bodies. No wreckage, no equipment, nothing. If Celestia tried this hard, I really don't think she'd have missed with every shot.”
“Where are the guards?” Applejack asked, looking around the top of the elevated platform.
The rear wall that lead further into the palace's official chambers was in similarly poor condition. Directly behind Celestia's seated position was a large hole in the wall, as though caused by some sort of targeted blow. Twilight hmmm'd, and stepped into the spot Celestia would be standing during a normal day.
“The Princess keeps a minimal complement of guards within the palace walls,” Luna said, and a dark look graced her face. “We have had… discussions… on that point in the past, but she has insisted what she sacrifices in security she makes up for in public opinion by making the palace feel less like a fortress.” Luna's scowl faded to saddened resignation. “Sometimes being able to say 'I told you so' isn't worth near as much as the cost.”
“They didn't… survive?” Applejack asked, looking back at Luna.
Twilight was listening, but her attention was focused elsewhere. The blast marks, the holes, the angles, they all originated from right there, on top of the stairs. Celestia had fought the entire battle from right there. That meant it was either very fast, and they'd appeared directly in front of her… or she'd moved on to somewhere else.
Luna shook her head. “No witnesses,” she replied. “No pony at all. They were either taken along with the princess, or removed earlier by me, when I arrived. Ponies outside reported a lot of flashing lights, horrible noises, explosions, everything you'd expect them to pay attention to. By the time additional guards arrived, well...” she motioned with her hoof to the room, “thou art seeing what they saw.”
“It keeps going back here!” Pinkie Pie yelled cheerfully from behind the rubble of the rear wall. She'd gone through the large hole to investigate.
Twilight hmmm'd again, and trotted over to it. “Escape route,” she reported. “It’s right behind where the princess was sitting. I'll bet when she realized she was outnumbered, she blew out this wall and tried to escape through the palace itself.” She turned back and looked at Luna. “Do you know where she might have gone to? Is there a secret tunnel or something?”
Luna shook her head, more to clear it than to deny Twilight. “When last I lived in the palace,” she explained, “it was a very different structure. Much has changed in it in a thousand years, Twilight Sparkle. But in the original design, there was an aqueduct that went under the bottom of it, leading to the waterfall. It’s the only escape route I know about.”
Twilight nodded. “Then that's where we're headed. It’s as good a direction as any!”
She disappeared behind the ruined marble and into the damaged hallways of the palace interior. The others swiftly followed her, with Luna bringing up the rear with Rarity. She cocked an eyebrow at the white mare.
“Does everypony… always follow her thusly?” Luna asked quietly.
“She has a… commanding presence,” Rarity explained as she walked, curiously exploring the feelings she was pulling from Twilight via their link. “In a somewhat neurotic sort of way. Good in a crisis, that's Twilight.”
“So I've noticed,” Luna replied.
“I think she might be enjoying this a bit more than she thinks she does,” Rarity commented as she picked her way around the fractured rock and looked around the hallway. “Ohhhh dear, what a miserable waste of such beautiful artwork… Oh, right, Twilight. We've kinda got a bit of a… thiiing… right now… where we can sort of read each others feelings and she's rather… enthused with the love of the chase, as it were.” Rarity made a face. “Maybe more than she should be, considering the circumstances, but I think that's just… Twilight.”
“You can read her feelings?” Luna asked, lifting a brow.
“There was a bit of a thrumming accident, you see...” Rarity replied.
“You were resonating with her?”
“Yes.”
“You do realize ponies go blind doing that,” Luna commented with a wink, and Rarity sighed.
“I found her room,” Twilight called back down the hallway. The wall had been destroyed, exposing it to the hall, but the interior appeared largely untouched. Twilight felt a pang of guilt that made Rarity wince sympathetically when she noticed the letters she had sent the princess lying unopened on the rug near the fireplace. While Twilight had been sending her pleas for help about bumping a few ponies on the head and getting her feelings mixed up with Rarity, Celestia had been fighting for her life.
“This is her room?” Fluttershy asked, nervously stepping inside. “Should we leave it alone?”
“They left it alone,” Luna said, eying the soft fabrics and plush rug and running her hoof over the princess' bed subconsciously, as though recalling her lying in it. “That tells us a few things. Celestia was definitely attempting to escape, not to protect something, because she bypassed her own room entirely, and whatever was chasing her did likewise, which means it wanted her, and not anything she had.”
“...it?” Fluttershy asked as her legs trembled.
“I know of very few forces that can fit in a hallway and make my sister run from them that can be described as anything other than 'it.'” Luna replied.
“It’s too bad she didn't lead it in here,” Pinkie Pie said as she emerged from behind a doorway toward the back of the bedroom, humphing as though an opportunity had been missed. “She could've locked it up in the dungeon!”
“Pinkie,” Applejack sighed in annoyance, “we're in her bedroom. There's no dungeon. I don’t even think Canterlot HAS a dungeon.”
“Sure it does!” Pinkie insisted while she pointed at the door. “Look!”
Applejack grunted and pulled the door slightly open to peek inside. Her head withdrew a moment later with a truly baffled look on its face.
“Er… why does the princess have a dungeon in her bedroom?”
Twilight blinked and paused to look behind her, but was nudged forward by Luna, who kept walking down the hall.
“It’s for parties,” the moon pony replied. “Just… make sure no pony is stuck in there and leave it alone.”
“Parties?” Pinkie asked with incredulity in her voice, “In a dungeon?”
“There are many different kinds of parties, Pinkie,” Luna replied, and proceeded to follow the trail of debris down the stairway to the lower levels.
Twilight felt a thrill from Rarity at that particular comment and shot her white furred friend a sly glance that forced both of them to giggle despite the mood. The reprieve was temporary though. Twilight was soon at Luna's hooves, trailing her into the darker parts of the palace interior with the other ponies behind her. Excluding Rainbow Dash, who was unable to move, blink, close her mouth or do much more than stare and make soft whimpering noises for a solid minute after the others had left the room with the wooden door still ajar. It took around that long for her now upright wings to descend far enough to fit through the door frame.
The deeper down the stairway they traveled, the wetter the environment became. Twilight had never been down here before, but from the look on Luna's face, it generally wasn't supposed to be quite so damp. The walls here were bedrock, the solid mountain structure that held the palace aloft above, and while they weren't polished clean and shined like the palace proper, they still had sconces and lighting to allow access. Twilight could hear the water from the aqueduct splashing and running somewhere in the distance, continuing its inexorable path toward the mighty waterfall on the mountain's edge.
“No moss,” Applejack said as she ran a hoof along a wall. “Whole place is drippin’ wet from top to bottom, but there's no mold or moss or nothin’.” She glanced back to Fluttershy behind her. “Means it’s not been wet for very long.”
“The aqueduct was never intended to be accessible by anypony that couldn't fly,” Luna said as she rounded the last bend. “Even after heavy rainfall, the top of the water is a few feet below the platform. It might splash up and get the platform wet, but not up here, not this far away and from around so many corners.”
They emerged to the roaring of the waterway and spread out over the damp surface of the maintenance walkway. The aqueduct itself was enormous, serving as a final delta from the various deep canals that laced the streets of Canterlot. From the concentration of water around the entrance compared to the relatively dry remains of the pathway, a picture was beginning to pull together of what had actually transpired.
“Something came out of the water,” Rainbow, who had caught up, declared. “That must be how it got inside!”
“I'm not so sure about that,” Twilight cautioned. “Something did come up from the water, but I don't see how it could have gotten all the way upstairs, through all the palace staff, out from behind the princess and ambushed her in her throne room. From in front of her, no less. Most of the damage was in there, that's where the fight was.”
“It didn't come out of the water to chase her,” Applejack said as she paced the walkway to get a better view of the angles, “it came to collect her!” She shot upright and turned to face the others. “It’s like when you're herdin’ cattle. First you need a place to put them, so you set up a corral to send them into where they can't get out, get it? Then you get behind them, spook them good, and herd them into the corral.”
“Something appeared in the great hall,” Luna muttered, thinking it over. “Something powerful, strong enough that Celestia had to fall back and resort to an escape to find reinforcements. She made a fighting retreat all the way to here, and...”
All seven ponies collectively eyed the waterway. Fluttershy reflexively took a few wary steps backward.
“At least we know she's safe,” Pinkie Pie said finally, breaking the silence. The others cast her a dubious look.
“In what way do we possibly know she's safe?” Luna asked, appearing almost offended by the apparently baseless assumption.
“Well duuuuh, silly. There's no body! We know its not a monster that did it, cause it was more than one thing and it was too well planned, right? Lots of pieces working together. It wasn't an assassination, ‘cause those always have reasons, ya know? Some kinda message or something. This was a PONYNAPPING!” she blinked, “and by that I mean the taking of a pony, not what Rainbow does all day. Soooooomepony clearly went through a lot of trouble to capture the princess and steal her off somewhere, aaand remove all the evidence. If all they wanted to do was hurt her, they'd do it right here! It’s plenty private.”
Luna blinked briefly, and looked at Twilight, who shrugged. “She's kinda brilliant, sometimes,” was all the purple pony could offer for explanation.
Pinkie was right, this certainly looked like a situation where Celestia was wanted alive.
“Well, we know she's in the water,” Twilight declared, listing what she took to be 'the facts.’ “Or was. And whatever grabbed her came out of it, so it wasn't flying. The water only goes two ways: back out toward Canterlot… or off the waterfall.” She looked at Luna, who nodded and turned back for the stairway.
“Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash,” Luna declared, “with me. We're going to assemble the remaining guard, collect the Wonderbolts and begin scouring the rivers. Twilight Sparkle, I leave your earthbound friends with you. The palace has already been searched, but if the princess was to leave a hidden clue, I know it would be with the intention of you finding it. I will dispatch assistance to you as quickly as I can.”
Twilight nodded, and gave her departing friends a hug for luck before they disappeared with Luna up the stairs. Fluttershy tripped three times from her own trembling before she was so much as out of eyeshot, and Twilight winced.
“I hope she'll be alright...” Rarity said, sharing her concern.
“Rainbow will look after her,” Applejack assured them. “She always has, or so they tell me. Bigger question is, what are WE going to do?” She looked over to Twilight for guidance, “You're the princess' student, sugarcube. You're the only one who knows what to look for.”
“That,” Rarity added, “and its going to be very difficult for us to work in close quarters if Twilight and I have to stay a whole room's width away from each other.”
Twilight had been doing her best to ignore the link. With both of their minds on the task at hand, Rarity and Twilight both had more or less identical reactions to their situations, at least on an emotional level, so it had been marginally easier. But now that the immediate investigation was over, Rarity's nature was weaving its way into her thoughts and distracting her. She shook her head and grunted.
“It would almost be easier if I could actually hear what you were thinking, instead of just the emotions,” Twilight muttered. “At least then we could, I dunno, discuss the situation or ignore each other or something. But it’s hard to listen to your gut when you're busy ignoring someone else's.”
“Let’s try putting some distance between us,” Rarity suggested. Applejack gave her a questioning stare, and Rarity shrugged. “Believe me, Applejack, I know what happens to mares that 'split up' in dangerous situations, but Twilight is quite right. If she’s going to spot any subtle clue the princess left behind, my feelings aren't going to be of any positive value.” She turned her nose up proudly and put her foot down. “Pinkie and I shall go on together! Applejack can defend Twilight if anything should go wrong.”
Applejack blinked, and raised her eyebrow. “Rarity, I'm the first to toot my own horn when it comes to tillin’ the land or applebuckin’, but Twilight Sparkle lifted an Ursa Major-”
“Minor,” Twilight muttered meekly.
“Shuttup Twi... An Ursa Minor up by its butt and floated it halfway across the Everfree Forest to its hole in the ground. If there's anypony here that needs a little extra 'protecting', its you. Come on.”
Rarity opened her mouth to protest, but stopped when she detected a hint of relief from her link with Twilight. She couldn't tell if it was due to Twilight's desire to provide Rarity with additional protection, or simply because she wanted the privacy to think clearer, but it was clear she preferred this particular distribution. Reluctantly, Rarity closed her mouth and relented.
"Pinkie!" Applejack called back.
Pinkie Pie had been eying her reflection in the water for a while now, trying to see if she could look in two directions at once. Derpy was so good at that… "Huh?" she replied, looking up.
Applejack shook her head. "Come with us, sugarcube. Twilight needs room to think."
"Okie dokie lokie! Don't fall in, Twilight!" Pinkie replied casually. Twilight felt her stomach turn as she considered the implications of that statement.
“Twilight,” Rarity said, feeling her friend's unease, “you be careful down here, alright? If anything happens, if you find anything, well...” she smiled, “I guess I'll know, won't I?”
Twilight smiled and nodded, and did her best to ignore the innate feeling of dread she felt from Rarity as the three ponies climbed the stairs toward the upper levels and left Twilight alone to examine the last place Princess Celestia stood before vanishing into the depths.
Alone, but for a small ripple in the water. A nearly imperceptible dome, little more than a bubble on the surface, that held still despite the current, and watched.