Rising of Destruction

by Ivo

Prelude - Dreams

It was a deserted place. Completely empty. No plants, no rocks, no life, nothing was there. The sun burned down heavily, turning everything into an arid wasteland.

The earth beneath her hooves was dusty and brown. The sky above her was hued in a menacing dark red. She didn´t feel well in this hostile place. There was nopony around, no one she could ask where she was and nothing to orient herself.
Her eyes wandered over the plain, searching for anything, but she couldn´t find anything. Of course, who wanted to live in a place like that! There was only silence and emptiness and heat!
She felt lost. Lost and lonely. She wished there would be at least one pony she could talk to! One pony to dispel her loneliness!
But her wish was denied.

Aimlessly, she wandered around. But how should she know, that she wasn´t running in circles? There was nothing, not even the tiniest rock, she could orient herself by!
She sighed. It was hopeless! There she was in the middle of nowhere, nothing around to orient herself and threatened by the never-ending heat of the ardent sun! There was no way to survive this! No way out of this empty hot red-brown hell!
She sighed in resignation and dropped to the ground. Her eyes filled with tears. So this is the end! she thought I will simply die of thirst, here, in this damned middle of nowhere! Nopony will ever find me! Maybe, at sometime far in the future, somepony will find my bones! Then, I´ll fetch up somewhere in a museum, staring at the visitors through my empty orbital cavities! Oh yeah, a really great future!...
Motionless she lay there, crying, sweating and waiting for her death.
But suddenly there was something in the distance that caught her attention.

She dried her tears and focused her bleary gaze. She wasn´t hallucinating, there was a faint glow on the horizon!
Slowly she rose to her hooves, trying not to interrupt her gaze on the strange glow. She feared that it might disappear when she blinked. At a rapid gallop, she ran towards the light and the closer she came, the brighter it shone. Suddenly, she felt something new. Hope! Hope to escape from this damned deathtrap, hope to find anypony she could talk to, hope to find anything living!
She ran faster and faster and the light was getting brighter and brighter. And soon, she was completely enveloped by light. She stopped. But the intensity of the light was still getting stronger. It was so bright that she had to shade her eyes with her hoof and squinted. And then, there was a bright flash.

Slowly, the light dimmed.

After a while, she slowly opened her eyes. She found herself in a dome with walls of shimmering light. Warm feelings suffused her body. She even could feel a slight warm breeze, stroking gently through her coat. It felt so much better than the loneliness she felt moments before! She looked around.
The dome wasn´t very large. It´s diameter and height was about fifteen meters. Beyond her hooves grew luscious green grass. Behind the shimmering light wall she could see the odd hostile wasteland she had been moments before.
She frowned.

This green oasis definitely was better than the desert out there, sure, but she still was in the middle of nowhere. Where have I gotten myself into? she asked herself, turning a small round in the dome.
It seems that if she walked through the light wall, she would get back on the outside. So she could decide: living forever in this lonely dome, where she at least had some food, or walking through an empty hostile desert, searching for an exit she couldn´t find.
“Nice choices!” she snorted.
Sighing, she lowered her head to graze a little and to get back some strength. The walk through the desert had cost her much energy. She had to rest now and - what was that?
Hadn´t there been a movement? She shook her head. This was impossible! There was no one around, excepting herself! She lowered her head again, but there it was again! A slight shadow, moving in her right canthus and disappearing, when she focused on it!
Frantically she lifted her head and nervously looked around. But there was nothing!
Am I getting crazy now?... “I really need some rest.” she murmured. “I should get some slee-EEAAAAAAAAH!” she yelled and felled a few steps back. She had turned back and wanted to lie down, but there suddenly was another pony - or better: the shadow of a pony - standing in front of her and staring at her!

With fearful eyes, she starred at the unknown stallion. Motionless, he stood there and stared at her.
His body had no exact contours and seemed to consist entirely of dark shadows. After the first scare had subsided she looked at him closer.
He really consisted completely of shadows! His body, his mane, his tail, they were nothing more than a dark mass of shadows! The only special things, she noticed, were his huge shadow wings and his horn. She frowned.
He´s an alicorn! she thought. She never heard of a male alicorn before.
She only knew the princess of her land, Celestia, and her sister Luna, who is metioned in many historical books. And, of course, Nightmare Moon, an alicorn of an old marestale. Some ponies say, Luna and Nightmare would be one pony, but that was ridiculous, unless they are schizophrenic...she shook her head and focused back at the stallion in front of her, before she lost herself in the stories of her books back at home. At the moment, she really had bigger problems!
Anyway, all in all, every alicorn she knew was a mare.
But alicorn was alicorn and she also knew about their powerful magic. Maybe he could get me out of this mess with it!

“Um…Hi there!” she greeted him. But he didn´t answer. He just stared at her.
“I um…was just surprised to see another pony here, so um…what are you doing here?” She waited. Still no answer. “Hello! Can you hear me?” Suddenly, still staring at her, he spread his wings and walked a few steps back, taking up a lurking attitude. Like a lion before he jumps at you to eat you up! a warning thought shouted in her mind. She shook her head. He had no reason to do this! It was ridiculous!
“Uh…Did I say something wrong?” she frowned. Again no answer. Just lurking. “I just wanted to ask you, if you could take me out of this mess, you know, the deadly desert out there and all and…” Now there was a reaction. He seemed to…laugh? “Hey, what´s so funny about that?” she asked. Then there was something moving outside the dome. She turned her head to face it.
More shadows!
And as they slowly entered the dome she noticed they were all… “More alicorns?”
With no haste they encircled her, taking up the same attitude as the first shadow. Now the fear came again. She was now surrounded by six creepy dark alicorn-shadows! They all looked like huge statues of material darkness. “Okay...now it´s really getting scary...” she said reluctant and tried to move back, but there was no exit anymore. She was totally surrounded by the six creepy shadows.

And then they took a step towards her...
And then another....
And then a third...

She was panicked now. The creepy shadows came closer with every step and there was no way to flee. And this wasn´t the only thing that frightened her. When the shadows got closer, she could swear to see an evil smirk in their faces and thought she would hear a devilish laugh in her head!
In this moment they pounced on her!
She screamed. She screamed loud and desperately. But no one could hear her!
They broke into her body, flooded her veins and tortured her with dark emotions! She cried out in agony and pain, again and again.
The world went black around her.
There were only the dark cravings, which forced her to ground. She felt hatred, but there was nothing she could hate. And that made it even worse. Then, she felt greed! She wanted to have anything in the world! Everything she could get! But there was nothing she could have!
Again and again, new cravings flooded her world of feelings. Desires, which nothing and nopony could satisfy. She bawled and trembled, streams of tears ran down her cheeks freely. She begged for relief and mercy. But for the dark shadow-alicorns there was no word called ‘mercy’!
Another wave of dark feelings flooded her.
Another agonized shriek escaped from her lungs.

And then, suddenly, it was over. The pain, the cravings, the shrieks.
She felt something new!
Love, harmony, faith, hope, safety, warmth, every positive emotion, she ever felt before! They eased the pain and expelled the shadows from her body. She heard a deep growl, when the shadows were displaced by the new feelings. Then, there was a last bright flash of warm emotions and the shadows were gone completely.
She sighted in relief.
After a while, she rose to her hooves again, still trembling from the impressions of the last moments. Her head ached. She took a front hoof to her head and groaned in pain. I hope this is over now! I don´t think I could stand one more rollercoaster of emotions like that.
She looked around. The meadow and the dome of light had disappeared.

Now, she found herself in another dome. But this one wasn´t made of shimmering light. It was built by pony hooves! And it was huge, very much bigger than the light one.
Its walls were made of a shining blue material she didn´t know. No! When she looked more closely, she recognized that they were made of glass...blue glass! And behind the blue glass she saw…water? No doubt! It was water! She saw some fishes swimming out there!
But how was this possible? Her eyes went up.
The whole building was supported by several dark-blue columns, which met at the ceiling. Well, exactly there was no ceiling. The top of the building had to lie above the water surface, because there was no roof and the water didn´t flood the room. She saw the sun above, shining down on her.
In the middle of the hexagonal dome, there was a big stone altar. And on the top of the altar, there was a giant transparent crystal. She frowned one more time.
What was this place and how did she come here?

As she got closer to the strange altar she noticed some old reliefs in its pedestal. She walked around the altar and looked at the pictures. There were exactly three of them.
The first showed her the land she had been several moments before. There was an empty land and, in the middle, there was the dome of light. She frowned again. It also showed the six alicorns, which had tortured her. On the picture, they tried to protect themselves against the light dome. But when they have to protect themselves against the light, why were they able to simply enter and attack me? she asked herself.
On the second picture, she saw the six alicorns again. This time, they were fighting against six other ponies. It looked as if the six other ponies were all normal earth ponies. She didn´t see any horns or wings. But still there was a magical glow around the six ponies. It seemed to be a hard fight. A fight for life and death!
She walked to the last picture.
Now she saw the dome she actually was inside. There were the glass walls, the altar and the crystal. The scene, it shows, was very dramatically. There was one of the six earth ponies before in front of the altar. The six alicorns attacked it from all sides. The big crystal was shining bright and it seemed that there were six shining spheres around it. On the altar in the picture she also saw a strange book. It glowed too.

She took a few steps back. Now that she was on the other side of the altar, she noticed the mysterious book lying closed on it. It was a simple book with a brown leather cover. The only special thing was the golden picture on its cover. It showed a circle with six spheres and twelve curious symbols, two in every sphere.
Confused, she looked to the ceiling. What does that all mean? After that inner question, she looked for an exit.
She found a huge twin gate right behind her…and boggled.
In front of the gate was a red-coated mare with a long green mane staring at her! How long was she standing there? She looked closer at the mare. Wasn´t that one of the ponies she saw on the pictures?
“Who…are you?” she asked the mare. But she got no answer. They both just stared at each other.
Then the red mare moved her lips. They formed only one silent word: Run!
She blinked - and the mare was gone. Before she realized what the red mare meant with that word, there was a noise behind her.

She gasped and felled a few steps back.
The book had opened and glowed in a dark light. But it was not the only thing glowing. There were six statues above her, one on every column, standing on stone plinth. They were all glowing. Why didn´t she recognize them earlier?
And as she realized, what they represented, her blood froze in her veins!
“Did you miss us?” a dark voice whispered in her head.
“N-no!” she stuttered. “T-t-that isn´t p-possible!”
“As you see: it IS!” the voice mocked and laughed.
Dark tendrils now flowed out of the six alicorn-statues, gathered and formed the dark alicorn-shadows she thought she would never see again. They laughed loud and cruel, until their leader stopped. “And now, revenge-time!” he yelled in her head.

She turned on her hoof and ran. She ran as fast as she could. The shadows swooped on her.
She ran straight to the gate, but the shadows were faster than her and obstructed her way. She avoided the first and sidestepped. She hardly fought her way to the gate, avoiding the other alicorn-shadows, and was already past the last of them, but then, a shadow-tendril snatched one of her hind legs and brought her down. She groaned when she landed hard on the ground.
“No! Please! No!” she begged and bawled when the shadows appeared in her gaze and surrounded her. Again she heard their horrifying laugh in her head. And over the laugh she could hear the mocking voice of their leader, yelling: “No restraint! NO MERCY!”
And then, they attacked.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!”

In this moment, she woke up…

...and the story begins...