//------------------------------// // 1 - Prologue // Story: On The Dark Side of the Moon // by Blue Wolf //------------------------------// My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. On the Dark Side of the Moon Adolphus.Arthuro (Blue Wolf) Night had fallen on Ponyville, but the Library's lights still shone from it's windows. Inside, Twilight Sparkle lay huddled on the floor before Princess Celestia, who stood towering in the middle of the room. Behind the Princess, the rest of the Mane Six and Spike stood in a line, all looking angrily at Twilight as she bowed her head and sobbed fearfully into the wooden floor. Above, Princess Luna stood watching from the higher floor by the window, unnoticed by any of the ponies in the room below. “Princess...please...I'm sorry!” Twilight's body shook with fear and misery, her voice breaking into a fresh torrent of sobs. “I swear I've studied hard on the magic of friendship!...I...don't understand!...I don't know what went wrong!” Princess Celestia glared sternly down at her pupil. “It would seem that you have not learned enough from your experiences in Ponyville, my student.” The princess's voice was calm, but as cold as winter. “I am greatly disappointed in you, Twilight. I had come to expect so much better from my prize pupil, and I had high hopes for your future. But you clearly have not lived up to my expectations.” “I can't belive we trusted you Twilight!” burst out Rainbow Dash from behind Celestia. “We were your friends, but you were just using us! Like -- we were just some dumb research project!” “Pullin' our strings, jus' so you'd have your reports to send to the Princess! You even care about our feelin's? Or was that jus' another part of the lie?” Applejack threw her nose in the air and turned her head away from Twilight. “How could you do such a thing Twilight?” Fluttershy wasn't even crying, her anger visible all over her expression like words written in fire. “You're a MEAN MEANIE-PANTS!” Twilight cringed as the worst verdict in Pinkie Pie's vocabulary was handed down to her like a death sentence. Rarity refused to even speak to her, shaking her mane and pointing her muzzle away with a snort of utter contempt. Spike cuddled close to her foreleg with his back deliberately turned towards Twilight. Tears of horror, disbelief and pain streamed from Twilight's eyes as she tried to force herself lower and lower into the floor of the library as if to escape from the accusing words of her friends and her mentor's stern gaze. “No!...No...I-It's not true! I love my friends! Please...please...give me one more chance! I beg you Princess Celestia! Please give me another chance!” Her last pleas broke down into floods of tears as she covered her head with her hooves. Celestia however shook her head, seemingly unmoved by her student's despair. “You have much to think about before you can advance your studies any further, Twilight Sparkle” she declared. “And I see no other choice, but to take action that will ensure that you have plenty of time to reflect on your mistakes. ” “P-please...no...nooo!” Twilight began backing away in terror as the Sun Princess stepped forward towards her. On Celestia's head, the Element of Magic tiara gleamed potently. Twilight cried out again and fell to the ground, her body curling up and convulsing in the grip of her panic. Celestia's horn and tiara began to glow brightly, releasing a rainbow coloured beam of light which dived straight towards it's target. “Nooooo!” Twilight cried out in fear, rearing up on her hind legs and kicking helplessly with her front hooves as the beam surrounded her in a spinning vortex of rainbow colours. A blinding white light spread from Celestia's eyes and horn, Twilight's last despairing death scream of pure terror echoing through the library as the blazing light swallowed her. A moment later, a towering beam of rainbow colours blasted through the top of the library into the sky. Twilight looked about her as the white light faded, her heart gripped with panic and despair. She now was lying on a smooth floor of rock in a kind of vast, dungeon like cavern. Black cuffs attached to anchored chains on all four of her hooves bound her to the ground; she couldn't move far, or even stand and a failed attempt to light her horn told her that her magic was all but gone. The walls of the cavern were roughly hewn and of the same grey rock as the floor, but in front of her was what at first appeared to be a huge, round window made of semi-transparent glass. It stretched up to the ceiling and dipped below the line of the floor in a perfect circle and only faint hints of what lay beyond could be seen through it. A cold, bright white light shone through the glass, but only reached a short way into the cavern before the darkness overcame it. “Oh no...please... NOOOOO!” Twilight stared up at the window, an expression of pure horror crossing her face as she slowly began to realise the awful truth of her fate. Her cry echoed around the pitch black corners of her bleak and empty prison as she broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. The moon shone as brightly in the sky as ever. The only sign of Twilight's imprisonment behind it's face were the faint mare-shaped patterns of shadows and craters that marred it's surface. The same it had borne when Nightmare Moon had been imprisoned within... Spike woke with a start and sat up, suddenly wide awake and stared into the darkened bedroom of the library. He blinked a few times in confusion as his fuzzy vision began to clear and murmured in surprise at the figure taking shape in front of him. “Princess Luna?” The Princess of the Night was standing close to Twilight's bed in the darkened bedroom. She seemed a little dazed and had a worried expression on her face. As his befuddled brain began to clear, Spike began to notice a soft crying coming from somewhere nearby. Princess Luna didn't reply; Instead she walked straight towards Twilight's bed and as she leant over it Spike slipped out of bed and followed. Twilight was still lying in her bed as usual, but now she appeared to be crying uncontrollably in her sleep. Her legs twitched and flailed and she was calling out as if in a nightmare but she wasn't waking up. Spike's mouth fell open at the sight of the distressed mare. “What's going on with Twilight??” Princess Luna turned to Spike, and seemed to try to compose herself and take charge.“Spike...You must send a letter to my sister at once.” She turned and looked down at the still thrashing Twilight. The colour was beginning to magically fade from Twilight's coat. “Twilight Sparkle is in the gravest of danger...”