//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Discovery 
// Story: Spell Breaker: The Dawn 
// by Bungus 
//------------------------------//

	"CHEESE IT!", the terrified human yelled as he ran down the corridor, which caused both the princesses to face-palm.

The princesses looked back at each other and sighed, "Time to get to business.", Celestia said with a much cooler head but still with a degree of seriousness, "Go retrieve him.", she said turning to one of the gold-armored guards coming from behind her. They only responded in a shallow nod with stoic looks on their faces.

Luna stepped in front of them, effectively blocking their path through the narrow corridors, stopping them. The guards looked back to their solar princess with worried looks now on their usually emotionless faces. She gave them a nod, and the guards began to advance again.

Luna gave a low growl and charged her magic, but was interrupted by Celestia's hand. "No, Luna. There has been enough bloodshed today.", she said with a threatening stare to her younger sister. 

She answered with her own stare and replied with venom, "So he can be imprisoned for something that he very well couldn't have done? No sister, I think I--." She was interrupted by Celestia's raised hand.

"Don't worry Luna. We have caught the perpetrator, he thoroughly confessed to the crime but refuses to give anything besides that. He says that only the information can be passed to the young man now wandering the dungeons."

With a moments hesitation, Luna sighed in defeat seeing her side of the argument disintegrated relatively quickly. She stepped to the side to let the guards pass. They walked passed her silently, but anyone could tell their stoic masks were cracking. 

"So how do you justify locking an innocent person in the dungeons? And one of Chief Squad if I might add. They aren't even technically bound by Equestrian laws!", Luna said, her anger surfacing again.

"He was framed. Quite expertly, I might add. I had a perfectly good reason to imprison him.", Celestia said to fellow princess.

"What do you mean framed? How?", Luna asked worriedly, her eyes shrinking, "Wait... could this be connected to the disappearing humans?"

"I know not sister, but it might."

Suddenly, the guards came running back to the princess, both almost vomiting up their previous lunch. Both had the look in their eyes that only ponies could get.

Fear

Pure. Unadulterated. Fear. With pupils the size of pinpricks, the guards approached the princesses with their stoic expressions completely shattered, eaten, spit out, then pissed on. Breathing raggedly, they could not tell the princess what they had seen for several seconds.

"Well, what did you find?", Celestia growing impatient. 'All that taxpayer money to get this.'

"W-w-we f-f-found...", one of them spoke up wheezing trying to keep his food down, while the other couldn't stomach it very well and was emptying his stomach in a corner.

"Ugh.", Celestia complained as she stormed passed her guards. What she saw she was not prepared for. this particular cellblock housed the most horrifying creatures in Equestria. Hungry, deadly creatures.

Now every creature of myth and legend that threatened her little ponies were on the loose in her castle. Demons, goblins, and horrors she thought that she would never see again were... eating her subjects. She shot a look at her sister, who now faltered in her gaze and looked guiltily at the floor. She new fully well that her spells had blasted open the doors, her magic signature was all over this place. 

Now don't think that her dungeons were not well secured, they were undoubtedly the most secure cells on the continent, but only hers and Luna's magic could open them. And with Luna spraying her magic all over the place, it was almost certain to have opened a few of the cells.

"We shall discuss this later!", she said storming into the room.

Charging her magic, she dispelled most of the creatures with a simple blast, although some of the demons still remained. She charged several sealing spells to make sure only her magic could unlock them from their prisons. With a flash of binding magic, she sealed away all of the demons in sight; the remains falling to ground with a thunk.

Turning to her sister, "Now Luna, for your punis--", she was cut off by a scream cutting through the stale air. 'Just freaking peachy,' she thought, 'witnesses to the demons.' "Stay.", she commanded her sister. Trying to remember the memory wipe spell, she took off down the corridor, leaving her escorts in the dust still trying to regain their control over their gag reflex.

Running down the hall she heard the scream again, closer. She doubled her pace down the hall, using her wings to gain speed. Turning a corner she came into a small circular room lit by the occasional torch. 'The execution chamber', she thought to herself. Scanning the room she spotted the human from earlier trying to defend itself from a particularly hazardous creature, it swinging its huge, scaly fists at the man. And before she could react, Luna came barreling through the archway entrance to the room colliding into Celestia.

Celestia's breath was knocked out of her from the impact with her sister, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground with an ungraceful face-plant. Luna was first to recover and got off her sister, a familiar indigo-hued aura surrounding her hands and horn when she saw the creature and the cornered human.

"Luna! DON'T!", Celestia tried to stop her fellow princess, but to no avail. The creature in her sister's sights was a Flare Goblin. They were a rare occurrence nowadays, due to the attempted purge of the species from the Badlands, and they had a rather nasty habit of reacting quite... explosively to magically charged blasts. And with the magnitude of that blast Luna was preparing, they were looking at enough energy to level a mountain.

As if in slow-motion, Celestia watched as the magical blast was released at the goblin. Her eyes followed the mass of energy as it left her sister's hands and flew right into the goblin's chest. The beast stopped moving all-together and after a few milliseconds it began to glow. 'Any second now.' Celestia thought as she threw up a shield around herself and her sister in vain, knowing the blast would probably, if not kill her, collapse a mountain on her head. With the final moments of her life passing, all she could here was her heartbeat.

Ba-dump

Ba-dump 

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

BOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!

A blinding light shone with the intensity of a thousand suns from the explosion. She could feel the shield cracking already from the force and heat of the blast. Although just when her defense was about to fail, she could feel the blast quickly extinguish like a candle in the wind. Opening her eyes she watched in awe as the human, who should have certainly been disintegrated, was funneling the energy into himself. The energy levels weren't just able to see with the eyes, which was around class-D beings, you could actually feel the magical pressures in the room. Overpowering, was the only word that came to mind to describe it.

Magic coursed through his being like the blood in his veins. Archaic lines of runes appeared on his body on his arms, legs, and chest. His clothes burned off from the energy radiating off his body. He opened his eyes to have them glowing a fierce red color. Celestia saw nothing in those eyes, just an emotionless abyss. All this happened in a moment before his face twisted into that of pain. Pain that can't be told of. It can only be. 

He let out a piercing scream as the energy in his body exploded outward in a crimson arc. The force of the archaic wave shattered the remnants of Celestia shield like squashing a fly, sending her and her sister into the wall. The blast shook the entire wing of the dungeons. Sliding down the wall, she covered her eyes with her hands to block to light that her shield had filtered out. The pressure was almost unbearable now, as Celestia thought her eardrums would implode. But, just as quickly as the human's magic flared up, it mysteriously just... stopped. Celestia now looked over to the man, who was now on the floor, clutching his head.

"Sister?", Luna asked because she recovered first. "What was that?"

"No... " Celestia muttered worriedly.

"Tia', what is it?"

"No... no, no, no, nononononono!", Celestia yelled.

"CELESTIA!", Luna yelled, shaking her sister by the shoulders.

Celestia was mouthing something over and over again, like if you peeked into an asylum's many cells you'd see an inmate doing the same thing. 'No, not again. Not again. Not now. NOT. Now.', she thought over and over again. She soon began to become angry... no, enraged that he threw this wrench in her plans.'N, NO ! I-I'll-', and her train of thought was knocked off the tracks by a slap to her face.

"CELESTIA, STOP!", Luna screamed, "TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG!"

"H-he-he's the S-s-spell-B-breaker.", Celestia responded to her sister's outburst, now quivering.

"... Then we have to protect him.", the younger sister began after a moment's hesitation, "You know very well the changelings have infiltrated our corps for years now. It's only a matter of time 'til they find him."

Celestia opened her mouth to rebuke, but closed it after seeing her sister's wisdom. Just then, the two escorts from earlier turned the corner into the circular room, panting with spears raised, and saw their princess, a smoking pile of goblin, and a quivering human incapacitated on the floor. 

Celestia turned to her sister, "We will discuss your punishment later, you're dismissed."

Celestia turned her attention back to her guards and before they could ask a question, Celestia raised her hand to silence them, "Take the human to the infirmary, and get him a shadow.", Celestia said, now in her usually calm voice.

The guards gulped, "Any suggestions for the shadow, uh your majesty?"

This caused Celestia to smile, "Guards, get me a quill and some parchment. I've got a letter to write."