//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Battle Cry Of The Nadir 
// by WolfTheWyvern 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight woke up with a start. It was dark, and sleep still muddled her thoughts. It must’ve been after midnight, she thought, and she was… on the floor?
“Spike?” She called. “What happened, Spike?” Twilight started to get worried when there was no answer. Twilight switched on the lights with her magic, and was surprised by what she saw: it was her old place, in Canterlot. She hadn’t lived here in years. 
“Princess Celestia?” She queried to the room. “Princess Luna?” Silence responded to them both. Twilight was starting to get creeped out when she saw the magical residue on the floor. It was right where she woke up. Did she get set back in time? Twilight didn’t really know, but she knew Discord had to be involved. She took a moment to study the magical aura left behind. It felt strange; Twilight would swear that she had felt spells like this before, but she couldn’t-
A loud bang on the door startled Twilight. “Um… H-Hello?” Another crash that was just as loud made Twilight start backing up. A blue magical aura took the door and in exploded inwards sending splinters flying everywhere and sending Twilight off her feet. Four Canterlot Guards, fully armed, rushed in the door.
“There’s the traitor,” One of them shouted. “Seize her, but keep her alive. Queen Luna wishes to deal with her personally.”
Twilight, dazed by the concussive force of the explosion, was just getting back to her feet. She heard something on the skylight above the guards. With a colossal shatter, a figure fell through the window. He levitated two knives, that both found their mark in the necks of the leading two guard ponies. As if dancing, he gave the third a buck to the chin, grabbed his spear, and used it to pin the fourth one to the wall.
Twilight found herself paralyzed with fear. Never before had she seen so much blood. The poor pony speared to the wall was coughing up a spray of blood. The two other ponies that had caught a knife in the throat lay in a growing pool of their blood, dead. The last soul was moaning near incomprehensible pleas for his life, and the white figure slit his throat. The cloaked pony walked over to his speared victim on the wall, took the three blood soaked knives from the dead ponies and wiped them off on the still choking guard on the wall. Then the cloaked pony moved towards Twilight. She wanted to run, wanted to scream, but she felt like her hooves were iced to the ground.
“Oh please, if I was going to kill you, I would’ve taken you out first,” said the cloaked figure from beneath the scarf that covered his face. He spoke with a serene, calm voice. He looked Twilight over, “Well you picked a bloody good time to grow a pair of wings,” Twilight could hear a smirk in his voice.  The figure gave a quick look towards the door. He talked more rapidly now, “Okay, there are at least another ten of the Celestial Elite downstairs. I was going to have you wait up here, but I just got a better idea,” He began to force Twilight towards the window.
Twilight’s mind kicked into gear, she tried to backpedal, but the stallion had the physical strength on her. “Wait a minute, who are you? What are you doing? Why did you kill those ponies?” she shouted.
The figure stopped, “What are…” He trailed off for an instant. “Okay, I need you to wait downstairs,” The figure broke the window in front of Twilight, and unceremoniously pushed the Princess of Magic out the fourth story window. Twilight was able to right herself and land without hurting anything but her dignity, but she wasn’t concerned with that right now. She looked back up to the window and found it empty. She heard more combat coming from the house, and took this as her chance to run.
Twilight knew not what was going on, nor why there was a lunatic loose in Canterlot massacring Royal Guards, but she did know that she wanted to be as far from him as possible. Twilight ran into the city, hoping to lose the bloodthirsty phantom in the shadows of the darkened city. She ran until her heart felt like it was about to pump out of her chest, and she continued until she felt safe. It took her a minute to notice that something wrong. Canterlot was always a busy city, with a thriving night life, but the streets were deserted. The oil lamps were shuttered, and the city was as quiet as a graveyard. Something about the hushed city made Twilight want to crawl into a dark corner and hide. It all just felt… off. 
Twilight slowed down and forced herself to think. The guards were looking for her? They seemed to be armed for a fight, on a day to day basis guards rarely walked around with spears and swords. Why did they call her a traitor? None of this was making sense to Twilight. Her mind drifted to the figure that had intervened. Who was he? He just came in and murdered four guards, and acted like it was nothing at all. On top of all that, where was everypony? Questions piled on top of questions, and Twilight decided to tread lightly.
Twilight came into a small square, with a large statue of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna dominating the whole space. At its base were countless posters with faces on them, some looked brand new, while others looked to have been in the weather for weeks. Among all of them, one stood out. It was fresh, the glue on it still wet. Twilight was shocked to see her own ice cold stare in the picture, but her heart all but froze at the words on the poster.

Wanted for crimes of high treason against the Empyreal Diarchy:
The unicorn Twilight Sparkle.
Alive: 100,000 Bits
Head: 50,000 Bits

Twilight stood there for minutes, just reading the words over and over again, and tried to order the questions that came flooding into her head. However her mind kept coming back to two words: alive, and head. Twilight could come to no other conclusion, but she couldn’t think of what crimes she could’ve committed that would warrant her death. Equestria hadn’t suffered such barbarism since before the reign of Discord! Then another word came screaming into her head: unicorn. Twilight had been an alicorn for over a year now, she had her coronation in this city; nopony would make the mistake of calling her a unicorn. With everything she had seen tonight, Twilight could not accept that this Equestria was hers.
She looked at some of the other posters on the wall. Some were petty crimes, like theft, and some were more serious, but most read just like her own poster. Twilight also noted that none came close to her own bounty. Among the blank stares, Twilight found another poster that caught her attention. It looked to have been there for a while now, and lacked the face of a pony, but only bore the image of a single, white feather. The poster read:

Wanted: The pony known as ‘White Feather’ and his band of rebels.
They are known for multiple crimes against the crowns including:
Murder, theft, high treason, and multiple counts of destruction of crown property.
Generous rewards will be given to any and all who give information leading to the capture of this dangerous criminal.
For the ‘White Feather’ alone,
Alive: 500,000 Bits
Head: 250,000 Bits

Twilight just knew that she had her first brush with this character, and she didn’t know whether to feel lucky to have gotten away, or to be afraid that she had thrown away a key ally that would have kept her alive. Twilight was only making more questions for herself, and she had to come up with a plan. What she did know was that she was a wanted mare, a criminal had just saved her, and there was something very wrong with this whole situation. This was even outside Discord’s domain of wrong; yes he was far more than chaotic, be he never was one for violence. Some greater magic was at play here.
For now, Twilight had no other chance but to keep her head down, get some questions answered, and hope she could keep it on her shoulders. An involuntary yawn also reminded Twilight that it was in the middle of the night, and she was far from well rested. Twilight started to look for a place to sleep and a good disguise. Her body wanted to look for sleep first, but Twilight knew it better to look for a disguise first. She had two problems to overcome, her wings, and the fact that she had no money. Twilight’s first thought was a spell, but anything that would alter her form drastically enough to hide ascension would either be too taxing to maintain, or far too permanent for Twilight’s tastes. However, if she combined a physical disguise, with a magical one, it might just work. Now she just had to source a cloak without anypony seeing her, and without any money whatsoever. Twilight wasn’t a thief, and she decided that she wasn’t going to start stealing tonight; however, she did have an idea, even in her Equestria, the Canterlot elite were wasteful, and she hoped that they wouldn’t have changed now. Twilight wasn’t above dumpster diving, especially is the situation was as dire as this, or she just saw a pony throw away a perfectly good book. 

Twilight sighed in frustration as she open another trash can only to find… well trash, but it wasn’t the trash she was looking for, and she needed to find it soon. Twilight replaced the lid and moved to the next set of cans, already trying to think of another plan in her head. Hoofsteps behind Twilight made her jump for a hasty cover behind the trashcans. A grey earth pony mare in a black cloak walked into Twilight’s field of view, and she prayed that her second rate cover would hide her for now.
“I did see you there, so you might as well come out,” said the mare. Twilight froze, and judged the best route for her escape. “Look, I’m not with the brutes,” She sighed “I’m also breaking curfew. I don’t see why you’re hiding there, just causing stress for yourself.” She looked right into the darkness to where Twilight was hiding.
Twilight fought off the urge to run. She needed a friend, and she needed one almost as much as she needed that cloak. Twilight stood up and walked into the light.
The earth pony mare first recognized Twilight, then she saw the wings. “By the Empyreal Sist-”
“Please, don’t tell anypony,” Twilight cut in quick, “I’m not who you think I am.”
“Oh course you are,” replied the mare. “You were the personal student to Queen Celestia herself; who it seems to have opened a whole new set of problems for yourself,” she nodded to Twilight’s wings. “I can see why the Queens want your head now.”
“It’s far from what you’re thinking,” Twilight replied. The mare began to open her mouth to protest, but Twilight cut in quick. “I need your help; I need a place to stay and hide from the guards.”
“Well I would help you if I could,” Twilight was crestfallen, clearly asking this poor mare to take in a criminal and risk her own well being was asking too much. The mare let out a quiet chuckle, “Dear, it’s not what you’re thinking,” She smiled warmly. “I cannot bring you to my home because I don’t have one.” 
“I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
“It’s fine, been this way for a while now, and I’ve come to realize that it can be better this way. Now, there is no way that you are going to be able to last a day without some sort of disguise.” The earth pony mare unclipped her cloak, and handed it to Twilight.
“Oh, no I couldn’t possibly accept this,” Twilight was torn between taking it and continuing her fruitless search.
“You are going to need it more than I,” she smirked. “And I found it a couple of cans back anyway.”
Twilight smiled and accepted the cloak. She then promptly put it on. “Thank you,” she said.
“Anything to help an alicorn. There seems to be less of y’all these days,” sorrow tainted the mare’s words. Then she smiled, “But tonight is a new night, and a new alicorn has arisen. Good evening.” She nodded and started to walk off into the night.
“Wait,” Called Twilight. The mare stopped. “What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” and she walked into the night, leaving Twilight once again alone in the empty streets of Canterlot.
Twilight wasted no time casting the alteration spell to hide her normal looks. She changed her self to have a white coat and a ruby red mane, but she still put her hood up just to try and hide herself even more. Twilight yawned again as she remembered that it was now probably in the early hours of the morning, and she needed some sleep, if she could manage. Twilight was able to find a dark, dead end alley and a corner to huddle up onto. She was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

Twilight was warm and comfortable when she woke up. Songbirds were singing outside, and she smelled the sweet scent of pancakes. Twilight stretched and opened her eyes to reveal her library. It must’ve just been a horrid dream! She smiled at the morning sun, and made her way downstairs to see what Spike had whipped up for breakfast.
What Twilight saw at the bottom of the stairs stopped her cold. It was a Celestial Guard, golden armor shining in the morning sun, speared to the wall. Dread filled Twilight’s heart as she walked up to the dead pony. She wanted to call for help, but she couldn’t open her mouth. Then, he coughed, spitting up blood all over Twilight. She backed away in horror as blood began to flow from the guard’s mouth. Twilight ran into something warm. She turned in horror to see the walls bleeding. The whole library bleeding! Twilight closed her eyes and ran through the door. Instead of earth, her hooves flailed in the open air. Twilight was falling through a black abyss. She tried to fly, but her wings wouldn’t work. She landed in a sea of blood, she tried to keep her head above the surface, tried to swim, but she sank. She tried to scream, but the blood filled her lungs. Farther and farther down she sank, air robbed from her by the metallic taste-

Twilight woke up coughing. She was cold and sweaty, and the fear still surged through her even though she now knew what was the dream and what wasn’t. She was still in the alley that she fell asleep in just hours before, and luckily still in her disguise. She took a moment for her heart to slow down, as the remnants of the nightmare burned off in the sun’s rays. Twilight triple checked her spell, and when she was sure that it would hold up to some deal of magical scrutiny, she headed out.
All in all, Canterlot looked to be more or less the same to her own. Twilight began to wonder just how different this Equestria was. She began to aimlessly wander around the city, and it all seemed to be mundane: ponies went to work, shopped, and chatted with their friends at the little posh cafés. Twilight could barely comprehend how this could be a society that would come to the conclusion that murder could be the only way to solve a problem. Twilight needed answers, but she didn’t know who to trust to give them. She gave some serious thought to walking to the castle and talking to Princess Celestia herself. Maybe she would understand that she wasn’t the same Twilight Sparkle that lived here before, and would help her get home.
Twilight began to notice that a number of ponies were gathering in a large square. Curiosity got the best of Twilight, and she followed the crowd to see what was happening. She could feel the tension in the crowd; there was a dull roar, but Twilight couldn’t make out what was being said. Her attention was drawn to the raised wooden platform in the middle of the square. Atop the platform was what looked to be some sort of restraint, but Twilight couldn’t make heads or rail of how it worked. 
Then the crown fell silent. Twilight saw two Celestial Guards lead a restrained unicorn stallion. He had a dirty silver coat and a terribly messy navy blue and neon green mane and tail, and he had a hammer and anvil as a cutie mark. However all Twilight could see was that he looked as if he hadn’t seen a solid meal in weeks. The stallion was blankly staring forward as the guards locked his head in the restraint. Twilight could’ve sworn that she saw a single tear fall from the stallion’s eyes. Following this procession was a portly green and orange earth pony stallion who was far more jolly than the rest of the crowd.
“Fillies and Gentlecolts, we gather here today for the trial of Steelsmith. He is charged with the heinous crime of theft,” The green stallion spoke with a high, affluent voice. “Steelsmith, what say you in your defence?”
“I will not deny that I stole,” said Steelsmith. The crowd gave a collective gasp. He looked pleadingly out into the crowd, “I stole those apples only to feed my family,” He dropped his head to look at the wood planking below him. “And I only request of the forever wise judge that he be lenient. I will serve my Queens as he wishes,” Twilight could barely hear his defeated voice from where she was standing.
The green pony smiled and said something to one of the guards, who walked to the back of the platform and retrieved a bone saw, and Twilight’s heart dropped at the sight of it. “For the crime of theft, by the power of the Empyreal Diarchy, I hereby sentence Steelsmith to be rid of his means of theft, so he may never repeat his crimes.”
Steelsmith’s pupils went to the size of pinpricks, and he began to weep and beg, and the crowd started to roar, some cheered the verdict, but others called out that it was injustice. Twilight hoped for once that she was not right about what was going to come next, but she was. The Celestial Guard who had retrieved the bone saw took it and placed it right on the stallion’s horn. He then began to saw, slowly. Tears welled up in Twilight’s eyes, and she forced her gaze from the spectacle. Over the crowd, she could hear Steelsmith’s cries as they tore through her heart. When his screams stopped, Twilight found the strength to look up. Steelsmith had fainted, she hoped, and the guard unceremoniously finished his work. The other guard freed Steelsmith from the restraint, and pushed Steelsmith out of it as if he was a sack of trash. As the guards left, the crowd dispersed and went back to their normal business, leaving Twilight standing alone in the middle of the square.
She tentatively walked up to the platform. She saw Steelsmith’s horn lying on the ground, discarded. She gave the bloody appendage a wide birth and found the stairs up. She walked over to the unconscious pony, blood welling from the place that his horn used to occupy. Twilight fought back feelings of pity and disgust; she had to help. She ripped a piece of cloth from her cloak and made a makeshift bandage. She then cast a spell to wake the poor pony up, and one to alleviate some of his pain.
Steelsmith woke up with a moan, “Who are you?” He asked Twilight slowly.
“Somepony who’s here to help,” Twilight said.
Steelsmith actually laughed, “Help, why would an upper-Canterlotian elitist would ever lift a hoof and help…” He started to nod off again. Twilight did not like how much blood he was losing. She cast another spell to try and stop the flow.
“Look, where do you live?” She asked hastily to keep him mind going.
“I don’t live anymore, just leave me here to die,” Steelsmith swatted at Twilight with a hoof.
“You don’t mean that,” Twilight pleaded.
“I do…nothing left here for me anyway.”
Twilight tried to lean the injured pony against herself, but Steelsmith fought her, and fell back down to the wooden platform. “I don’t want your help!” He shouted, “Can’t you see that I’m no use to anypony anymore?” Tears and blood mixed freely on Steelsmith’s muzzle.
“How can you say that?” Twilight said. “I know that you can come back from this,” she lied.
“Are you stupid? I’m a blacksmith without any means to shape metal anymore,” He was sobbing so hard that Twilight could barely make out what he was saying, “I… I can’t even feed my family anymore. WHAT USE AM I NOW?” he shouted at Twilight.
“None, if you don’t get up on your hooves right now, and stop thinking just of yourself,” Twilight’s voice turned cold, but her heart was on fire.
Steelsmith stared off into nothingness, closed off to the world. There was a long moment of silence, but Twilight wasn’t going to give up yet. “You have a foal?”
Steelsmith was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded.
“A filly or a colt?”
“A little colt.”
Twilight sat down in front of Steelsmith, “What’s he like?”
This time Steelsmith smiled, despite his situation, “He’s quiet and shy, but he wants to mold metal, just like his daddy.”
“Think of him, Steelsmith. Think of what will he feel if his daddy doesn’t come home?” Twilight took a breath. “He needs you around, no matter what happens to you,” Twilight stood, and offered her hoof one last time. Steelsmith looked at it for a moment, divided, but he took it. Steelsmith leaned heavily on Twilight, and they began to make their way slowly off the platform. “Where do you live?” Twilight asked.
“Lower Canterlot, a little niche in front of the gem mines.” They were approaching the steps to get off of the platform. “Let’s take this slowly,” He said.
“Okay,” Twilight replied. They started down the steps, one at a time. They had made it halfway down when Steelsmith stepped on Twilight’s cloak. She lost her balance, and they both tumbled head over hoof down to the bottom of the steps. Twilight had landed at the feet of a golden armored guard with a look that was a mix of surprise, glee, and fear. It confused Twilight for a moment, until she realized that her cloak was on top of Steelsmith.