Several Days Later...
Concentrate, Twilight, concentrate...
Twilight was focusing extremely hard as she attempted to break the magic seal that kept the small brown book given to her in her dreams protected. If she could break the seal, she would be able to see the contents of the book without releasing any evil magic.
Hopefully.
There was a small chance that all the evil magic inside the book would be released and spread all over Equestria, but she needed to know what was inside. After a while of concentrating, she heard the book begin to hiss and she stopped, approaching the book and carefully opening it. Nothing happened, and she breathed a sigh of relief, for she had performed the spell correctly, and now could see the contents with no consequences. She flipped to the first page, only to be greeted with a page full of nothing. She could feel that there was writing there, however, but she just couldn't see it. She looked to see if there was any kind of impression on it to indicate that it once held writing, but to no avail. She didn't know why, but knowing that there's writing that she couldn't see there made her furious. She pounded her hoof on the ground and groaned, only to see the book begin to glow. She leaned over to see what was causing the glow and suddenly felt strangely light-headed, finally falling over and blacking out.
Slowly opening her eyes, Twilight observed the surrounding area, finding that it was the streets of Ponyville.
How in Equestria did I get here? she wondered to herself.
She began to wander around, however, after hearing a small explosion somewhere behind her, Twilight wheeled around to look for the source and saw that house after house was exploding into flames, the explosions slowly getting closer to her. She began to barrel in the other direction, but was slightly slower than the advancing blasts. After a few minutes, she was eventually engulfed in flames. She closed her eyes, waiting for the pain, however, it never came.
What the...? she thought.
She opened her eyes and saw in front of her the ominous form of the Dark One, smiling at her triumphantly.
"You're too late, Twilight. Your world is already burning down, along with those you care about," it gloated.
Waving it's dark hand to the side, the Dark One showed her the scene of destruction before her. Debris scattered the landscape, and bodies were lying everywhere, most of which were dismembered and rather gruesome to look at.
"Your world is gone, and the only thing left is fire and death. You've failed."
The face began to dissipate into several smaller faces, which then began to circle around the princess, screaming and pleading.
"Help us!"
"Why is this happening?!"
"Why didn't you help us, Twilight?!"
As the faces continued to bombard her with screams, Twilight laid down and began to cry.
"Please, make it stop!" she yelled.
The screaming ceased and the faces fused together and formed the Dark One's massive presence again.
"This can be prevented, but only if you convince the whole of Equestria to swear eternal allegiance to me." the dark being commanded her.
Twilight jumped up and glared at the imposing mass before her.
"Never! You can't win, not while me and my friends are still alive." she shot at him.
The Dark One snickered before bursting into a full-fledged laugh.
"Oh, that's precious!" he said between laughs.
Twilight continued to glare at the demon as he laughed. After a while, he noticed her stare and stopped laughing.
"Oh, you're serious." he commented
"Ha!" it began swirling around Twilight in a blur of black.
She kept her stance as it was and tried to follow the Dark One as he whirled around her.
"You've never fought anything like me, Twilight. I'm more powerful than every living thing in Equestria combined! You have no chance against me." he cockily added.
"Friendship always conquers evil, even an evil as powerful as you."
The wall of darkness began to close in on her.
"Mark my words, Twilight Sparkle; by the end of this, you'll realize that those words are far from the truth."
Twilight jolted awake and quickly looked around. She was back in her bed chambers, but there was an odd warmth next to her. She looked next to the brown book in front of her and saw a small glass ball. She lifted it up and observed it's contents, which seemed to be several small fires evenly spaced out from each other. Twilight set the ball down and leaned back in her chair.
What could he possibly mean? she wondered to herself. Friendship always beats evil!
She looked outside at the small birds that were chirping at her windowsill.
Doesn't it?