//------------------------------//
// 8. Truth of all Things 
// Story: Equestria's Dreamscape 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

	"Tia, things are getting out of hoof lately," Luna commented to her sister, just five days after the discovery of the corrupted dream area and four days after they allowed Twilight and her friends to visit said area, "I know we said that we thought He was involved in all of this madness, but now we have proof that it is Him doing all of this corruption. Mistwing and her brothers have been sighted in Rainbow's visit to the corruption zone and we are certain that he is close to escaping even now."

Celestia sighed and leaned her head against the back of her stone seat, her mind swarming as she tried to digest all the information. The Elements had been useful in discovering that, by the means of their arrival and departure, the stallion in the corrupted zone was using some form of magic to twist the world to his own command. It was the fact that they each reported a different castle, a different feel to the very air, different ponies around the palace, and, the most important part of all, a different stallion every time.

The second most important thing was that they knew exactly who the stallion was and how to fight him, so they were well prepared this time.

Only she, her sister Luna, Discord, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings, and the exiled King Sombra knew exactly who they were dealing with. She felt no need to tell her former student and her friends that the stallion they had been dealing with was an extremely dangerous stallion with a dangerously high level of magic. Nor did they need to know that the ponies they had met during their visits were some of the most dangerous fighters from so very long ago. That would frighten them beyond imagining and likely make them question why they bothered with the dream area.

No; they would not learn the truth about the stallion and the other ponies they had met.

"If He is close to escaping...," Celestia began, only to stop when a second later, "I know we swore off calling him by his name in the Dreamscape, but can we please call him by his name now? I mean, it just sounds ridiculous that we call him by everything else in the rule book except for his actual name. Surely we, Goddesses in our own right, can call one dangerous stallion by his name and not live in fear that he'll escape just because we dared to utter his name."

"I completely agree with you." Luna said.

"Seriously?" Celestia asked, tilting her head in confusion, "You were the one who decided that it was the best idea not to call him by his name, but here you are saying that now we can begin calling him by his name again. Seriously Luna, what gives?"

"We are no longer in the Dreamscape sister," Luna explained, thankful that the courtroom that they were sitting in was void of life except for the two of them, "If we were still in the Dreamscape and we dared to utter his name it could have caused the very seals that are keeping him in there to unravel and allow him to escape. Now that we are in the waking world we are free to say Midnight's name with the greatest of ease and without any fear of the already weakened seals breaking too soon."

"I was afraid of that," came a voice as a brown coated stallion dressed in a business suit walked into the courtroom, "I assume the courtroom is protected against eavesdropping and what I say is between the three of us?"

"This area is protected by the best protection spells we have in our arsenal," Luna exclaimed, stomping her hoof on the ground, "Come and join us Discord."

Celestia watched as the stallion transformed into the familiar rule breaking Draconequus she had Luna had defeated a thousand years ago and the same one that Fluttershy had rehabilitated not too long ago. Discord stretched his wings and his claws while his eyes scanned the entire room, as if making sure that the room was as secured as Luna claimed. It was strange for them not to be at each others throats, but they had settled their differences, the majority of them anyway, and they were friendly towards each other again.

Discord sighed and summoned up three thrones, but the number of how many he summoned actually confused Celestia. She hadn't been expecting Discord to actually leave Ponyville and journey all the way to Canterlot to speak to them while they were already in session. The first of the three thrones was a seat that was made of some black material that had parts covered in some glowing green ooze. The central throne was the same black and red throne that Discord summoned whenever he wanted something to sit on or while he thought he was untouchable by others. The third throne was made of darkened crystals, nearly black crystals that resembled the royal seat in the Crystal Empire, and a velvet red cushion.

"I was unaware that we were having guests Luna," Celestia retorted, giving her sister a dirty look, "Why keep it from me that Discord, Queen Chrysalis, and King Sombra were coming to this meeting of ours?"

"I thought that you might overreact if you heard they were coming," Luna explained, "besides, they fought along side us when we went to war with Midnight. It only seems fair that we gather together again so when he escapes we'll be prepared for him. Knowing Midnight he'll be sure to raise his army from the passages of time and come to war against Canterlot and the rest of us."

"Yay, sister Luna," said another voice as none other than Queen Chrysalis came running into the room happily, throwing her front hooves over Luna's shoulders for a big hug, "It is so good to see you again. Same to you Cele, though I hope your still not sore about me beating you at Cadence's wedding."

"Sister Chrysalis, this is an unexpected surprise," Celestia said, waiting for the shadows to roll on in at any moment, "I take it our brother Sombra got lost somewhere between here and the Crystal Empire?"

"Actually he told me he was going to beat me here," Chrysalis answered, releasing Luna and taking a seat on the throne Discord had summoned for her, "Imagine my surprise to find that I actually beat him and that he's nowhere to be found at the moment. But we aren't here to talk about me and him having a race to see which one of us could get here first, we are here to talk about our fallen brother."

"Correct," Celestia said, her horn lighting up so she could activate the Seeing Runes she and Luna had placed around the area earlier, which in turn made the entire room light up with a visual of the area Twilight and her friends had scouted out for them, "Here is what we know so far on Midnight's progress; he has taken to constructing a fortress that resembles Fort Arcanium in the middle of what Luna calls the Forest of Thorns. The fortress was, in the very beginning, destroyed beyond reckoning when we unleashed the very Elements on him and his forces. The ponies who had foolishly followed him to the end were cast into the deepest pits of Midnight's own memories, serving as a reminder of his failure.

However, we know that Midnight has begun to poison the very ground around the ruins of Fort Arcanium, twisting the ground, the trees, and the very air to an evil version of itself. So we sent in Fluttershy at first, had her scout out the area and see what it was that could have been causing the corruption at the time, but she only found an old Midnight and his snow leopard Victorious. After that Applejack went in and discovered that all the ponies that the Elements had locked away in his memories were all dead, including his beloved wife Mistwing. Pinkie, being her natural puff of fun, breached the barrier that kept the dead in their place and brought Mistwing back to life, which in turn caused the next event.

Rainbow Dash found and reported that Fort Arcanium has nearly been put back together and that every single pony has been brought back to life. Right now Midnight stands ready, waiting for the seals that bind him to the Dreamscape to shatter so he could make his escape. His forces, the Abyssal Legion, stands with their master, sharpening their skills and their tools while they wait to reclaim their former bodies. This means that the moment the seals protecting our little ponies from the wrath of Midnight go down we have to be ready to deal with him as swiftly as possible."

"How do you suppose we fight him sister?" said a voice as Sombra, clad in his iron armor and flowing red cape, materialized on the third throne, "How do you propose that we fight our brother, our own very flesh and blood brother, when not even the Elements of Harmony could best him the first time around?"

"We'll use our superior offensive magic against him," Celestia proclaimed, not surprised that Sombra would stick to the shadows until he thought it was necessary to join the conversation, "The moment the seal shatters and Midnight escapes his prison he will be overcome with dizziness and the need to eat something. Thanks to the two thousand years he has spent in the Dreamscape, no doubt eating whatever he wanted that his mind could conjure, has done nothing to satisfy his real hunger. The fact that he doesn't know what Canterlot looks like will give us an extra opportunity to defeat him while he adjusts himself."

"And what about the real Elements?" Sombra asked, giving his sister a toothy grin, "Have you told them that they've been dealing with a deranged alicorn stallion who, despite being the original Element of Magic, nearly ended all of Equestria two thousand years ago? That the bat pony mare most of them met is really the sister of two of the most dangerous criminals ever known in our history and that she's married to the most dangerous stallion Equestria has ever known?"

"How can I tell them that we, by that I mean Luna and I, are related to the most dangerous villains in all of Equestria?" Celestia angrily fired back, "That we five and Midnight were the original Keepers of Harmony, charged by a higher being to keep the world running together? How do you think they would react to the fact that the stallion we had them visit and report on is really our brother, the original Element of Magic, and that he nearly destroyed the very thing we were sworn to protect?"

"I would say we might be a little disappointed that you kept the truth from us," said a voice as Twilight and her friends, minus Rarity, uncovered themselves from the dark corner they were in, "but considering that he was an evil pony who hurt others and nearly ended all life in Equestria I guess it was better that we didn't know. I do wish you trusted me enough to tell me, or even warn me, about the dangers we could have faced at the hooves of Midnight."

"Twilight, dearest Twilight, I do trust you." Celestia sadly said, "But you must understand that there are no records of Midnight left in all of existence and if word got out that there was another ruler, one sealed away in the dream world, then ponies would have begun to suspect that there might be more we weren't telling them."

"Like what else?" Twilight asked, her eyes gleaming with the thought of getting some information no pony else had.

"Like we mentioned earlier the five of us are all related to one another," Celestia answered, beckoning to Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra, "and the fact that we five, and Midnight, were the original Keepers of the Elements of Harmony. We were tasked with keeping Equestria safe from anything that could do the world harm and we kept it safe for the first hundred years of our lives. It was during those first hundred years that the first ponies of earth, of sky, of magic, of crystal, and the changelings appeared. That was when we decided to create our own separate civilizations, allowing us to rule over our little ponies and to uphold what we had been tasked with doing."

The runes that had displayed the Dreamscape version of Fort Arcanium shifted until it showed the original fortress, the one that displayed the purple banners and the ten sided star that was Midnight's cutie mark. The vision was like an alternate reality, allowing the assembled ponies to watch the alicorn stallion, the purple coated pony clad in black armor, stand on a balcony over what appeared to be an army of a thousand ponies. Scattered throughout the entire army were creatures, anything from wolves to animated golems, made out of pure crystal.

"This red eyed, purple coated, blue maned alicorn stallion is Midnight," Celestia continued, her eyes lingering on her fallen brother for a moment, "Standing next to him, clad in a light metallic suit of armor, was his wife Mistwing and behind them were her brothers Razorwind and Thundercloud. His army, the Abyssal Legion, was a gathering of over a thousand ponies and the largest collection of crystal creatures we had ever seen at the time. At the time of the creation of our civilizations we five did not know that he had already amassed that many ponies to rule over.

We discovered later on that Midnight, using his skill over magic, constructed a barrier over his entire fortress city that made it invisible to anypony else besides him and his followers. Say one of his soldiers killed another pony in cold blood and disappeared without a trace on the border of where the city was supposed to be. The barrier was designed to keep the five of us and our various ponies out of the city so that we couldn't spy on him and figure out what he was planning. It wasn't until we caught one of his followers in the action of nearly killing another that we discovered that Fort Arcanium even existed, let alone that it was protected by a barrier.

So we called Midnight out of his fortress to attend one of my personal balls, kind of like the gala you girls attended not too long ago, and we dressed in fine clothing so we didn't give him the impression we were going to attack. When he showed up he stared at each of us with what could only be described as pure anger, something that he wasn't known to even possess. Midnight was, as a general rule, the most quiet stallion in the entire world when he was around his family, but get him alone without us near and he turned into a whole different pony.

Midnight accused us of stealing our mother's attention and keeping it all to ourselves, leaving him to feel unwanted by both her and the rest of us. He accused us of raising our ponies with the abilities to fight for themselves so we could turn them into soldiers against him and the ponies he protected. He really believed that we were out to get him, making it so that we were each building an army that would go to war against him. He even went as far as to accuse us of executing ponies who had sworn their allegiance to him, trying to turn us into monsters in front of our own guests.

Our beloved ponies knew the truth, that the five of us were the purest ponies in all the land that Equestria had to offer, and that nothing Midnight could say would change their opinions. For their ability to stand up to him, to call him a liar, and the acknowledgement that he was just a jealous sibling, it destroyed what little remained of our kind hearted brother. He attacked us without warning, using high level magic to level the entire ballroom of the Old Canterlot and kill the majority of the ponies assembled.

Using our knowledge of magic we managed to save a few ponies from the sudden and devastating attack, but we gained the confidence and the love of the ponies we protected. Ponies flocked to Old Canterlot after hearing the news of our brother's betrayal, bringing with them the desire to save others from the fate that could befall them if Midnight won a war between him and us. Luna and I didn't feel it was necessary to put them in harms way just so we could defeat Midnight, but eventually we decided it was for the best. Better to let them do what they think was right then for us to tell them not to interfere with something that would change the way life was in Equestria.

So three weeks after the attack and the training it took to educate the ponies in the art of defending themselves, we knew we were ready to face Midnight. We each donned ourselves with the armor that represented who we are; the golden sun armor for me, the light blue moon for Luna, an assortment of bits and pieces for Discord, a light green and black metal suit for Chrysalis, and the same suit Sombra still wears to this day. Our army, the first and last alliance of over three thousand ponies, was ready to do battle with a stallion who threatened everypony in all of Equestria.

That was before we discovered the truth about what Midnight was doing in Fort Arcanium."

The scene shifted again, this time showing the fortress surrounded by both a broken barrier, the soldiers of the Abyssal Legion, and the soldiers of alliance. The area around the war zone was burning, the black smoke filling the air as the two armies clashed with magic and the other weapons they had brought with them. But what Celestia wanted to show them was an area with five stone pillars that surrounded a single amethyst orb, the pillars containing the symbols of the other Elements of Harmony.

"What Midnight had done was nearly impossible," Celestia said, the image lingering on the area, "He had somehow snuck into our most secured vault, past all the magical defenses we had set up, and made off with our Elements. As a rule we were supposed to hold only the Element that was assigned to us and as such Midnight was supposed to have only Magic, but he stole the remaining five from under our noses. When we discovered the Elements were missing we knew he had to be behind it, because at the time there were no thieves who had the knowledge necessary to bypass the barrier spells we had in place.

What he was really doing with the Elements was he was trying to override the powers stored within the gems and use them to complete a ritual of untold origins. Midnight wanted to crack open the sacred gems, unleashing the full fury of the Elements upon Equestria, and in doing so he would have destroyed everything. But the five of us arrived at his ritual site and we put a stop to his madness, knocking the pillars down and breaking his concentration enough to make him face us.

We fought, our magic tearing the very ground apart as Midnight's own magic twisted the fabric of reality and began what could only be described as the End. Fireballs the size of houses rained down from the sky, crushing whoever was unfortunate enough to be under them when they hit the ground. Ponies on both sides panicked by the shaking of the ground, the terrible splitting that separated hundreds of ponies from the ones they loved and killed hundreds more. Even the gentle wind became a storm that tore through our beloved ponies, discarding their poor bodies anywhere and everywhere.

In an act of desperation to save what we could the five of us picked up the discarded Elements and placed them around our necks, hoping that we could at least reverse the damage Midnight had caused. Chrysalis wore the necklace of Generosity, Sombra bared the burden of Kindness, Discord housed the power of Laughter, Luna brought forth the power of her Loyalty, and I contained the essence of Honesty. We all hoped that Midnight hadn't broken the Elements to the point where they were worthless against him and his single Element.

Midnight, still wearing the Crown of Magic, sensed that we had obtained the other Elements and his horn lit up with the purpose of eradicating us from Equestria. We could see it in his eyes; he cared so much about the utter destruction of the world that he saw everypony that stood up to him as a threat. So we did what we had to do and used the magic within our five Elements to counter his single Element, but the end result of the conflict stunned us and still confused us.

Midnight's body slowly became encased in stone, something similar to what happened to Discord when we were forced to seal him away, and his soul was torn right out of him. His soul was shattered into three pieces and the pieces were sealed away in three separate locations; the Sun, the Moon, and the Dreamscape. Before we knew what else had happened we realized that the remainder of his forces and Fort Arcanium had been transported into his memories, so he could rule his dreams for all eternity we gathered.

Before he was completely covered in stone he gave us one last threat, saying 'One day, be it in the near future or the very distant future, the Elements gathered here will turn on each other for power or wealth or whatever pleases them. One day you all will be forced to give up the Elements and forever cast them into the darkness until they are born anew in different forms. And I promise you all, one day I will return from my banishment and I will finish what I started, regardless of whoever stands in my way.' And then he was stoned up, stuck forever in the battle stance that he had taken while we were fighting not moments ago.

Everything that was wrong with the world corrected itself the moment Midnight was sealed away and the Crown of Magic had fallen off of his stony head. We tended to the wounded and counted ourselves lucky that we didn't perish in the fight or lose so many that we might have reconsidered the entire thing. For a time it seemed like everything would return to normal, that ponies would forget the horrors they had seen during the war and, more importantly, forget about Midnight himself. But, like Midnight promised, things went downhill after a thousand years of peace.

Chrysalis turned into a love hungry creature, bent on getting love for her ponies at whatever cost it meant to the rest of the races. Discord went completely mad, using his power over chaos to cause destruction, madness, and havoc wherever he went. Sombra fell into the dark arts, his mind becoming that of a corrupted King that enslaved everypony under him until he was defeated. You all know what happened to Luna, but with the change in ones mind and the salvation of our brother DIscord you have restored everypony to their original state of mind."

"So now what are we going to do?" Twilight asked, not surprised to find that her friends were half paying attention, "There has to be some way we can stop Midnight from escaping from his prison."

"The Elemental Stones," Luna answered, allowing her sister to take a break from talking, "The five stones that Midnight used represent the five Elements that bind him to the Dreamscape, effectively keeping him from leaving. I thought we could have focused on how much he had either lost or how much he had gained in over two thousand years, but I was wrong. By sending you all into the Dreamscape we have assured that several of the seals have already been broken, allowing Midnight to return to who he once was."

"Wait...where is the mare named Rarity?" Sombra asked, realizing that they were missing an Element of Harmony.

Before anypony could answer the question the ground violently shook, making them fall to their knees as they looked outside the building they were in. A pillar of pure blue magic appeared somewhere in Canterlot, likely the park by the looks of it, but the sky darkened to a near black color. They could hear the screams of ponies, the cries that sounded like something had emerged from the area where the pillar was located.

"Faust almighty," Sombra cursed, everypony getting up as they faced the pillar, "We're too late."

"What just happened?" Rainbow asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"The last seal has been broken," Celestia answered, and for the first time in Twilight's life she could hear the fear in her old mentor's voice, "Midnight has been released at long last."