There was a heavy darkness that laid under the cheerful ponies of the Empire. As many of them rose with the light of a new dawn, quickly trotting out of their homes to begin their days, a stallion cloaked in darkness wallowed in anger and misery.
Cannon Fodder’s ears strained as his eye lids began to drift closer together. He waited desperately for any hint of noise, something to latch onto so that he could chase away the mind-numbing silence that swallowed him. What little strength he had after his failed expedition to the Ruva Kingdom had been stripped away after several nights of forgoing sleep.
The nightmares that he used to face bravely had devolved into scenes of pure madness, with Skeletor taking the place that Sombra once held in Cannon Fodder’s dreams. Death and carnage followed the monster like a shadow, sweeping up the innocent into a swarm of horror, and Cannon Fodder could only follow the trail that Skeletor had left behind. Of course, not every nightmare was bathed in blood, but he found the ones filled with corpses to be better than the others.
Emerald screamed for mercy, her shrill cries causing her throat to bleed as the predator drew closer.
With a sudden shake of his head, Cannon Fodder tried to expel the memories of his darkest nightmares as he stared off into the depths of the cell’s dark shadows. The darkness was, in a strange way, comforting to Cannon Fodder. He remembered being afraid of the darkness when he was only a colt, creating monsters that weren’t there and hearing whispers that never existed. His father, Spear Carrier, had a rather unorthodox way of conquering his fears.
For a full day, Cannon Fodder did nothing but stare into a dark room as he sat in outside in the hallway. Then, seemingly at random for the next few days, his father would order him to sit outside that room for an hour and gaze into the black pit. The longer he stared into the darkness, the less he feared it, and eventually he conquered what little fear remained.
Even at that moment, the oppressive shadows that decorated the room felt soothing to the general as he evaded the memories of his nightmares. There weren’t any demons in the darkness to torment him like the ones in his mind. The real monsters never stalked in the shadows like vermin, they strode in the light like kings. Sombra, Crumb Catcher, and Skeletor were both villains that basked in the eyes of the public as Cannon Fodder wallowed in the darkest depths below the Empire.
As he contemplated the poetic irony of his situation, or rather, delved into the fluid thoughts of his sleep deprived mind as words crashed against each other, he tore his eyes away from the shadows to steal a glance at the ornate mirror that hung in his cell. Only his own tired eyes stared back at him as he briefly investigated every inch of the mirror’s frame.
After staring at the mirror longer then he should have, Cannon Fodder smothered his desire to stare at it and turned his gaze back to the shadows of his dungeon cell. He didn’t want to feed into the temptation of searching for ghosts in his delirious state. The dead were gone and that was final. They wouldn’t return, the Empire would mourn them to the end of time, and their ashes would feed the farm fields in the Empire’s caverns.
Princess Amore, Star Shine, Dice, almost everypony he knew was already gone. And if Emerald stayed near Skeletor, then it would only be a matter of time until she was gone too.
Feeling a new wave of nausea come over him, the General banished those thoughts from his mind and glared at the shadows, losing himself in the void. He would have stared at them for hours on end if it weren’t for the chime of a unicorn’s magic ringing in his ears.
His ears lead him back to the lonely mirror as it began to glow a brilliant shade of green. Leaping to his hooves, Cannon cautiously distanced himself farther from the magically charged mirror as tendrils of energy wafted from the edges of the mirror’s frame.
The long arms of magic wove around each other to braid themselves into a pillar of energy. A flash of bright lights forced the general to look away from the blinding eruption of light. When the blazing display had finally dimmed leaving behind a warm glow that encompassed the cell, Cannon hesitantly looked towards the source of the new light that kissed his fur.
His eyes widened as he looked up and met a pair of dazzling emerald eyes. The mare’s soothing green eyes outshined the amber colored jewels that decorated her platinum crown, sparkling with an unspeakable sense of love and affection that she felt for her subjects. The only thing more beautiful than her gaze was the delicate smile that decorated her muzzle, a delighted smile that could easily calm the primal rage of dragons. Her mane flowed on a non-existent breeze, framing her face in a sea of glittering pink hair.
She was elegance incarnate, love personified, a mare unlike any other, Princess Amore.
Cannon could only gape at the spectral form of the deceased princess as she took in the dungeon cell.
“What an unfortunate place for my loyal soldier to reside in. This is hardly becoming of a general,” Princess Amore observed as her eyes traveled around the damp cell.
“I’ve lost my mind,” Cannon muttered.
“You have not, my subject,” the specter reassured him as a wing brushed against his chin. Though it was only for a moment, he would have sworn to Faust herself that he felt Princess Amore’s touch. “In fact, I would argue that you are the only one to keep their mind intact.”
“You’re… You’re real?… Is that really you, your majesty?” Cannon asked, his words leaving his muzzle before an ounce of doubt could cross his mind.
“Yes, I’ve returned, my little soldier,” she reassured him. “It has taken far too long, but I have returned. The forces of Tartarus did their best to contain me, but I could never leave my subjects to fend for themselves.”
“Faust’s song, it’s really you. Y-Your majesty!” Cannon suddenly exclaimed as he bowed to the etherial spirit of Princess Amore.
“Yes, it is I, my loyal and faithful subject. I am pleased to see somepony still views me as their princess,” she commented idly before stamping a hoof to wordlessly command Cannon to rise.
“It has taken me far too long to reach out to you, my subject.”
“H-how are you here, I… I saw you die,” Cannon shamefully admitted as tears welled in his eyes. “I couldn’t protect you, I… I… You died and—"
“And I’ve returned. My loyal little soldier, you are right. You failed to protect me, but I do not blame you. Sombra was too powerful to face alone, not even Princess Celestia and Princess Luna could win against him. He was unstoppable.”
“But-but I—"
“I won’t hear it,” Princess Amore interrupted. Oh, sweet Faust, how Cannon wished to just lay down and listen to her for hours. “You did all you could against Sombra, and you fought against his successor just as well. I couldn’t expect anything more from you, my brave and loyal soldier.
“While you have failed to stop both Sombra and Skeletor in the past, I will help you overcome the spawn of Tartarus that dares to sit on my throne.”
“You… You’ll help me fight him?”
“Of course, I will. I need you, and Skeletor knows it as well. That monster has barraged your dreams with horrible illusions, hoping to break your will and shatter your faith. But worry not. So long as you do as I tell you, then I will keep him at bay and defend you. All I ask is that you stay loyal to me, and we can put an end to Skeletor’s reign.”
Her words that wove into a loving melody of promises, filling Cannon with hope and pride as she circled around him. “I can help you, may faithful soldier. Together, we can reclaim the Empire from the wicked demon and help everypony.”
Cannon nodded, barely surpassing the joy-filled smile that wanted to break his professional mask as he nodded to the princess.
“What do I need to do?”
“For now, gather your strength. I will find a way to free you from this cell. Afterwards, we must go to the Ruva Kingdom, my faithful soldier,” the princess ordered with a warm smile. “And then, Grogar’s pet will kneel before the true ruler of the Empire.”
As the alleged ghoul of a goddess and an imprisoned general plotted in the depths below the Empire, a monstrous figure and an alicorn were silently staring down a deep hole in one of the highest rooms in the Crystal Castle.
Skeletor and Cadence stood at the edge of the cavernous pit that formed in the center of the throne room. It was if a starless night sky had ebbed itself into the earth, creating an abyss that appeared to stretch on infinitely. The pillars of obsidian that formed the pathway down appeared to melt into the darkness below, merging with the shadows that laid at the bottom of the dark chamber.
“… And you just found this?” Cadence asked as she peered her head lower. A faint echo of her voice crawled down the pit as it consumed the ghost of her voice.
“I was just as surprised, honestly. I was still in denial about, well, everything at the time, and I think I hit my staff against the floor? Mind you, I was still freaking out about killing their king, so when I found this, I thought it might have been an escape tunnel that could get me away from them.”
“What, did you think they were going to try and avenge him?” Cadence asked the skull headed biped, who simply shrugged as he leaned forward to stare into the abyss as well.
“Like I said, I was panicking, especially when I found out he was royalty. Back home, you don’t fight with royalty unless you have an army behind you.”
“I guess I could understand that,” Cadence conceded before she decided to change the topic back to the large hole. “So, the Crystal Heart was down here?”
“No, that was actually at the top of the other magical staircase, and the entrance to that was down there. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk down and a much longer walk up.”
“… I can only imagine what Sombra had to do to create this spell,” Cadence said as she backed away from the well of dark magic. “Sweet Celestia, how many ponies had to suffer for this?”
“Far too many,” Skeletor answered. “Which is why we should find a way to make him pay.”
“And you’re certain that he’s… alive?” Cadence asked, not entirely sure if that was the appropriate word for a specter.
“Either that, or I’ve lost my mind. Aside from the time I shouted at him in a mirror,” that definitely didn’t sound crazy and concerning, “I… I also think he’s been following me. I feel like I’m constantly being watched, and recently I’ve heard strange noises at night. As soon as I get up from my bed they stop, but I swear there was something there.”
That something was Star Burst who, at the moment, was also watching over Skeletor alongside another guard, Patience. The pair of guards were cloaked in light, blending into the background from their vantage point over the princess and Skeletor. A faint shimmer of light was the only thing that could betray their invisibility enchantments, but the duo were well hidden inside a room of shimmering crystal walls and floors that practically glowed in the early light of the morning.
Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, Skeletor didn’t know about the shadow that Cadence had placed on him, and the princess was hesitant to ever let him find out about that. “Has there been anything else you’ve noticed?”
“Aside from the occasional sudden breeze and a feeling, not much. But, knowing Sombra, he’s probably doing it to toy with me. So, do you have a way we could get rid of him, princess?”
“Skeletor, I thought I already told you, just call me Cadence.”
“Right, right. Sorry, it’s just, I’ve never been friends with royalty before. Regardless, is there a way to get rid of him, or isn’t there?”
“That’s… I’m not sure. I’m not too familiar with dark magic, but I do know quite a bit, and I was prepared to fight Sombra when I arrived, so I could theoretically purify him. I haven’t heard of anypony turning into a ghost with dark magic, and it’s going to be pretty hard to find him if he’s floating around here. While I know how to purify an enchanted object that’s made up of dark magic, tracking dark magic is another feat, entirely. We had something that we were hoping could track down the enchanted object that was preventing Princess Luna from entering the Dreamscape here, but it… kinda broke, when you met our Lieutenant.”
“Star Burst, right?” Skeletor asked, catching Cadence a bit off guard with his immediate question.
“Yes, I’m surprised you were able to remember her name.”
“Really? I can’t imagine it’d be hard to remember pony names. Most of them are noun followed by noun or verb, much easier than human names in my opinion. Why, does Crystal have a problem remembering them?”
“Culture clashing, I guess,” Cadence quickly dismissed. A rather large part of her was quickly becoming concerned at how natural she was getting at improvising lies.
“Huh, weird. Anyway, back to the magic tracker, that was the thing that Star Burst smashed on the floor about… over there, right?” Skeletor asked, extending a finger to the far edge of where the hole formed.
“Yes, it was an experimental device that we were only able to make one portable version of. I asked for my aunts to build and send another along with the supplies ad ponies I requested, and they should arrive in around a week’s time.”
“Well, that’s good then. But, why did you need to bring a dark magic tracker?”
“Because it would have helped us find Sombra and anything he enchanted. We were hoping to find whatever he enchanted that prevented Princess Luna from entering the Dreamscape of the Empire, but now that we don’t have it, it’ll be nearly impossible to find it.”
“… I’m almost afraid to ask, but what do you mean by, ‘Dreamscape?’”
“The plane of dreams where ponies connect to one another. And before you ask, no, it’s not some, ‘weird pony hive mind’,” she said, causing Skeletor to audibly snap his jaw shut at her prediction. Shooting him a knowing look, the princess smiled as she answered the next unasked questions that was probably on his mind. “I’ve had to answer a lot of questions from delegates that don’t understand the Dreamscape or a lot of other things about Equestria.
“A long time ago, Harmony blessed us with a realm where we could be connected on a level that went beyond physical relationships. And no, we can’t just trot into another pony’s dreams, it takes an incredible amount of magic and knowledge to do that. I guess the best analogy is just knowing that your neighbors are next-door. You can’t knock on their door or talk to them, but knowing that they’re there is more comforting than thinking you’re alone in a large apartment complex or the only pony in a big town.”
“… Magic is weird,” Skeletor concluded, causing Cadence to stifle a laugh. “So, Princess Luna can enter pony dreams?”
“Yes. It’s also possible to enter the dreams of another creature, but Aunt Luna is the only mare I know who can pull it off.”
“Alright, well that just leaves another question. Why is it so important that she can enter the Empire’s Dreamscape?”
“To quell their nightmares. They’ve been through a lot, and I think we both know how it’s affected them. Quite frankly, I’d be more concerned if they didn’t have nightmares after surviving what Sombra put them through. Giving them just a little more peace of mind can help them in more ways than one, ways that you and I can’t do on our own. It’s paramount that we find whatever is stopping her from entering the Dreamscape and destroy it before anypony has to suffer another sleepless night, or something worse.”
Skeletor nodded as he looked out one of the throne room windows to watch the ponies below. “Then we should do our best to find it. Is there any way to track it without the device? Maybe a spell or something?”
“Seeing the effects of dark magic on a creature are easier than finding them on an inanimate object, that’s why we needed the dark magic detector. While it wouldn’t be difficult for me to read the emotions of a pony and see if they were under the influence of dark magic, trying to find emotions in an inanimate object is another hurdle entirely. I don’t remember how it was explained to me, but I just know that the device was supposed to latch onto the source of something filled with dark magic and guide us to it,” she explained.
“So, it really was a Geiger counter then,” Skeletor mused.
“A what?”
“It’s a device that detects radioactivity on my planet. I am a bit confused, though. If it was so important, then why did Star Burst break it so violently?”
“Thestrals are pretty sensitive to certain stimuli like sight, sound, or smell. And, since the dark magic tracker could only be heard by thestrals, you couldn’t hear how loudly it was screaming at her.”
“Hmmm, so it was a like dog whistle right next to her ears, then. Was it detecting this staircase?” Skeletor asked as he returned to the edge of the dark pit.
“From what I’ve been told, I think it was sensing you,” Cadence corrected, earning a brief look of befuddlement from her skeletal friend.
“Me?”
“It detected you using dark magic.”
“Hm? Oh, right, I keep forgetting about that,” Skeletor hummed, as if forgetting about using an ancient and taboo realm of magic was something casual.
The princess stared at him for a brief moment, wondering if the displaced human was playing a strange joke on her. She waited for a punchline that never came, forcing her to swallow her surprise as she tried to continue their conversation.
“You… you just forget that you primarily use dark magic?”
“The less I think about it, the better I feel. To me, magic is magic, and I don’t really care so long as it doesn’t hurt me.”
“Really? Considering what I know about you, I’m surprised you’re not too concerned about ripping apart your soul like that.”
“… What?” Skeletor asked after a moment of silence.
Unseen by either the princess or the panicking demon, Star Burst wore an amused and cocky grin as Princess Cadence’s guard, Patience Piper, cringed at the sudden shrill voice that filled the throne room.
Having been a victim to the demon’s voice on too many occasions, the lieutenant was able to preemptively shield her ears from his cries while Patience bared the brunt of his sonic attack. It was nice not being the only mare in pain for once.
“What?!” Skeletor shouted as he quickly dropped the scepter in a panic. The ram skull of his staff balanced precariously on the ledge of the staircase as Skeletor backed away from it. “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT LAST NIGHT?!”
“I… Well I thought you already knew that,” Princess Cadence tried to explain.
“NO! I don’t know anything about magic, why do you think I’d know about that?”
“Hey, in my defense, you already told me and Shining that you knew about necromancy. That word alone is so classified that only a select few ponies know about it. I just thought that since you already knew about necromancy that you must know about the adverse effects of dark magic, too!” She argued.
“That was fictional on my world! By the gods, I’ve been ripping my own soul apart all this time? Fuck, I can’t believe I did it just so that I could turn a fucking page! Oh gods, what have I done?! Fuck, am I going to die? Am I going to hell? Please tell me I’m not going to hell!” Skeletor begged as his breaths grew shallow and he clutched his emblem. “Oh gods, I’m going to die, aren’t I? Oh, by the gods, by the gods, by the gods.”
“Hey, hey, hey, relax. Skeletor, relax, it’s fine.”
“How is this at all fine?! I’ve been ripping apart my own soul!”
“It’ll grow back!”
“Grow back?! Souls don’t…! Don’t… Do they do that?” Skeletor asked in a hushed whisper, as if his question was too delicate to pass his jaws.
“Yes, it’ll be fine. Just take a few deep breaths, Skeletor. In through your… Your nose hole, and out through your mouth. In, out, in, out,” Cadence advised, guiding Skeletor through the basic steps of breathing in an effort to calm him down.
“It’ll-It’ll grow back, right?”
“Yes, don’t worry. Just keep breathing. In, out, in, out.”
It took several minutes of his ragged breath filling the room, but the panicked demon eventually calmed down and retrieved his scepter, looking at the severed skull with a weary gaze as he spoke. “I…I can’t believe I was actually doing that. I didn’t even know it was possible for that to happen.”
“Didn’t you read about it in any of the books you’ve been studying?”
“No. The only things they said were muscle fatigue, wandering thoughts, and a little… Well, a lot of emotional stress. Each spell I’ve used required something to use it. If I used a levitation spell, my mind would drift and I’d end up staring dumbly at a page. If I used a portal spell, then I felt short of breath. I remember being really angry when I tried to use a shield spell, but I can’t remember that too well. None of the books ever mentioned sacrificing my own soul.”
“That’s… odd, to say the least. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to look over some of those books later. I may not know as much about dark magic as my aunts, but I know enough to understand how it should be used.”
“Thank you, Princess.”
“Cadence,” she corrected. “And, don’t worry about it, it’s what friends do.”
“Well, thank you, Cadence. So, how long will it take to… regrow my soul. I can’t believe I just asked that,” he bemoaned, rubbing his temple with his fingers in a circle as the princess hummed in thought.
“A soul can regrow pretty quickly under the right circumstances. It’s too bad we’re not in Canterlot, there are a lot of hospitals there that are specially trained to help with cases where students over exert their use of dark magic.
“Only a select few students in CSGU are allowed to practice dark magic, but it’s enough to warrant a good number of doctors who know how to accelerate their recovery. Depending on how often you casted dark magic, it could range from a few weeks to several months without a doctor.”
“Good to know, then. By any chance, would some of those doctors be coming here, as well?”
“There should be some that are familiar with treating it, but I didn’t specify it in my letter to her. I can send another, but any specialists in treating dark magic might arrive later than the doctors and supplies we already requested.”
“Good. Thank you again, Cadence,” Skeletor said, letting the tension in his shoulders slightly fall. His steady hands betrayed the calm facade he wore, something Star Burst could only catch thanks to her experiences with minotaurs through her sister’s fiancé.
Everything about the demonic creature, from his words to his actions, felt alien to Star Burst. An amalgamation of slightly familiar patterns that created the base of the otherworldly traveler.
The princess was able to catch onto the hints that his body unwillingly revealed, leading her to rest a wing against his legs in an attempt to comfort him. A gesture he clearly wasn’t expecting from how he hastily stepped away.
“Oh, sorry! I just thought you could use a hug,” the princess apologized.
“Well, thanks but I, uh, I think I’ll be fine without one, Cadence,” he excused as he looked into the sockets of his scepter. “I just need to process this. I didn’t know what I was doing to myself. I… I need to rest, I think. Um, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to close that.”
The princess followed Skeletor’s gesturing hand to the dark pit that sat in the center of the room.
“How did it disappear the first time?”
“The first time this hole appeared, it vanished about four hours after. Just enough for two trips up and down.”
“So it’s a time based warp between two places in space,” Cadence assumed, earning a baffled look from Skeletor.
“What?”
“Dark magic is able to bend reality in ways normal magic can’t, like this staircase. We should be seeing the hallways and rooms underneath this floor, but they’re not there,” she pointed out.
Skeletor stared down the pit, his eyeless gaze traveling down the walls as scratched his jaw.
“You’re right. But, how is that possible?”
“Like I said, dark magic is able to bend reality differently. This isn’t a hole, so much as it is a portal. This staircase is probably somewhere in the Ruva Kingdom, if I had to guess. The door at the bottom may be a portal as well, connecting to ”
“So he connected a staircase in another kingdom, to a staircase in this one?”
“There isn’t a staircase to the Heart. I had my guards fly up to the spire on the castle and there wasn’t an entrance in the floor like you and Emerald described. It’s more likely that opening this portal opened the one at the top of the spire, connecting the throne room and the spire by a pair of tunnels,” the princess explained.
“That’s… Incredibly convoluted.”
Star Burst couldn’t help but snort at that, something that Patience clearly disapproved of based on the glare she threw at her. It wasn’t Star’s fault that he blatantly told a magic user that magic was weird. It was, and nopony ever talked about it because they were afraid of looking dumb.
Magic, as an unspoken rule, was weird, confusing, and definitely convoluted.
Suppressing a laugh with a light cough, Star Burst turned her attention back to the pair as Skeletor paced around the pit. “So, dark magic can bend space and time like that?… If that’s,” he trailed off, dragging his eyeless gaze away from the hole as he stared at the wall.
“If it’s what?”
“… It’s nothing,” he dismissed, turning his skull back to Cadence as they walked towards the throne room doors. “It’s just that I have a lot to think about right now. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to… Go relax alone for a while.”
“Of course. And, if you ever want to talk, Skeletor, I’m available,” Cadence offered.
Skeletor appeared to ponder her suggestion for a few moments, before giving a nod to the Princess. “I will. Thank you, Cadence.”
Star Burst was quick to follow her charge as the throne room doors opened, flying close to the ceiling as the quiet demon stalked through the halls. She couldn’t think of what Skeletor had on his mind as he walked towards the royal baths, but she couldn’t help but feel like there was a worrying thought drifting in his mind.
Still, whatever thoughts or idle desires floated in his skull wouldn’t matter in the coming week, as the delicate balance of normalcy in the Empire would soon fall. Outsiders would soon find their way into the crumbling Ivory Tower, and citizens would be breaking through the solitary prison that severed them from the world.