Wednesday rolls in without anything worthwhile happening before then. Every pony in Equestria had been talking about the upcoming event with all sorts of emotions. Most were looking forward to it while a few shared Celestia’s initial concern and belief as they find themselves a place to get a good view of the sky for when the solar Eclipse begins. They set up on balconies, on roofs and even rolling out picnic blankets to setup on open fields and hills as the sun nears high noon. The moon is already in the sky, moving from the other side to meet with its counterpart in the middle.
Luna and Celestia are ready to perform the eclipse simply from one of the balconies of Canterlot Palace, forgoing trivial celebrations and aesthetics until this trial run proves to be a success. Both princesses face each other on each side of the balcony, facing the same direction in which their celestial bodies are moving. Both stood regal and tall, eyes closed in concentration as the pressure included with using their powerful magic to perform an unheard of and possible unstable event increases the closer it gets. Little by little, the sun and moon begins crossing each other and the sky begins to darken. Celestia was already a bit worried and Luna couldn’t help but feel slightly the same.
“So far, so good Luna… It seems you were right; the sky is growing darker with an eclipse. But I have to admit this is making me slightly uncomfortable.” The solar Princess points out. She couldn’t help but open an eye to visibly check on the sun and moon before closing them up again over and over.
Luna giggles a little bit, still trying to stay focused on moving the moon and keeping her senses on alert for anything.
“Don’t worry too much Celestia, or it alone could disrupt everything. The moon is already passing on front of the sun which demonstrates that both celestial bodies will not conflict with each other by simply being close, let alone both in the sky at the same time.”
“It’s wise not to assume things like that until it’s over Luna”
“Oh please big sister, have some faith.”
“Luna, I know you’re excited to have a day to show your hard work, but as much as you hope for the best, you should also be expecting the worse at the same time.”
“Yes, yes… Maybe I am too exci-”
A powerful but incredibly subtle ripple of magic emanates from the new Solar Eclipse as the Sun and moon finally get into position, freezing both princesses in place with their eyes wide open. The ripple felt as if a pony had found a double bass the size of Equestria itself and struck the lowest note possible. It left both regal alicorns in a state of confusion as their minds work to make sense of what just happened
Luna was the first to gather her thoughts into words.
“W-what… was… that!? That must have been the slowest but strongest magic feedback I have ever experienced!”
Celestia shakes her head around, clearing it from the residual haze from the ripple. Then she starts to move her head around as if trying to get a better signal with her horn.
“A magic feedback is certainly what I would name it too at first glance. But usually feedbacks disconnects from the pony using magic, most of the time rather violently. But it seems I’m still directly connected to the sun… In fact I can’t seem to let it go.”
Luna blinks and soon realizes the same holds true on her end as well. Moving her horn around instinctively as well. Finally she gives up and looks to the sky, seeing her work visible during the middle of the day for the first time, shining brightly enough to see the constellations. It wasn’t exactly how she wanted it, but this is more or less her goal for the trial.
“I suppose we should abort this trial run and figure out what happened.”
“Luna…”
“It’s not the spectacular event I wanted to demonstrate, but at least ponies now could see the stars in the middle of their workday.”
“Luna, I can’t-”
“It’s ok Celestia, I was hoping nothing would happen but I supposed not all is lost, at least we know it is possible to create a Solar Eclipse. Maybe I could-”
“I can’t move the sun.”
Luna does a triple take then alternatively looks at her big sister and the eclipse alternatively over and over.
“What!? You mean you lost control of the sun?!”
“No, It’s still under my control, but it seems… Locked in place. I can’t make it budge! Try to move the moon away.”
Luna doesn’t need to be told twice, for once rather eager to get the moon out of the sky before people think she is trying to create an eternal night again. Much to her dismay, nothing she could do was moving the moon. It stays firmly locked in front of the sun.
“I cannot move the moon either!”
“Another problem is that the eclipse is slowly taking more magic from both of us.”
“I thought I felt my magic being pulled away from me.”
“I’m worried about what would need so much magic for power.”
Princess Celestia didn’t have to wait long for an answer as she looked back up to the eclipse and witness something extraordinary. The sunlight that created a corona around the moon reaches out from behind it and begins to spiral into the middle of the moon’s surface, creating a circle of gold which is the color of her magic that the eclipse had taken.
“Sister… What is that? What is happening!?” Luna exclaimed.
The circle of gold suddenly becomes a ring as another circle of dark blue, Luna’s magic appears inside it, both now spinning in opposite directions. The two princesses can’t look away as this miniature magical eclipse in front of the real one now creates a cyan circle in the middle. However this circle continues to grow bigger, surpassing the magical eclipse and soon matching the solar one. Celestia squints trying to make sense of this new magic color that belongs to neither as a soft and low screeching sound gradualy increases in volume and intensity at an exponential rate.
The Sun princess couldn’t make heads or tail of that growing cyan circle. That screeching noise was getting too loud to even hear her own thoughts. It was almost as if-
“LUNA RUN! IT’S COMING STRAIGHT AT US!”
Luna shoots off the balcony as fast as her alicorn wings can take her. Celestia doesn’t have such luxury. She has a whole castle filled with her guard and staff to protect. Her eyes light up with whatever magic she had left, not willing to underestimate the danger as she projects a giant golden shield wall between the oncoming magic projectile and the castle. It hit with such force the shock wave shatters every window in Canterlot and flattens all of the trees in the immediate area.
Celestia however can’t relax just yet. In front of her, still pushing against her shield is the large sphere of cyan magic which was spinning fiercely against it. All she can do is stand her ground and hold the wall till the sphere loses all of its momentum and spin. Luckily this was easier than the initial impact which would have easily have destroyed all of Canterlot.
All of a sudden, both the sphere and her protective wall disintegrates instantly and something much smaller shoots past to her right. It completely destroys the wall of the hallway running perpendicular to the balcony. Whatever the answer was, it was there under all that rubble.
Celestia, closes her wings and lowers her head, being as cautious as she can be while she approaches the pile of bricks. She could hear flutter of many wings and the clopping of many hooves. The pegasus and unicorn Royal guard are coming to her aid because of their sworn duty and it couldn’t be more appreciated, because within merely five minutes, she hadn’t been so overwhelmed with this many problems in a long while.
“Your Highness!”
“Stay clear of the rubble! Unicorns help me carefully clear the debris to see what has just attacked us. Pegasus, tight formation above it and be ready to catch or defend.”
They all painstakingly worked hard to carefully remove the broken castle bricks. Then Celestia motioned them to stop and move back. A creature’s clawed hand protruded from the rubble, resting motionless on a brick. She removes all of the debris around it to reveal a scaly being of foreign origin. It was about as big as a normal pony, reptile in appearance with different shades of brown for its scales and stripes, feathers on its head down the back of its neck like a mane. It also had dragon wings, sharp axe-like tail spade and it had amazingly survived the force of the impact. Further examination told Celestia it was bipedal and was not a dragon despite having the wings and tail spade of one. I didn’t bear the appearance of something proud and powerful with little to no competition. No this thing had the shape of a creature that hunts and fights for nothing but survival every day of its life, she has no doubt that its eyes are very tired but alert eyes.
“This must be handled with care, Tend to its injuries and place it in a secured room. I will need to find a way to communicate with it to find some answers I desperately need.”
“Your Majesty, is this related to why you and Princess Luna can’t undo the Eclipse?”
“Yes, that will be the first topic of interrogation when it awakes. Just be careful when you transport it.”
“Your highness! We can’t pick it up! We can’t seem to grab it with our magic”
“Really? How odd.”
“No matter how many of us or how much power we put into picking it up, the magic simply can’t grab onto it.”
Celestia walks over the unconscious creature and attemps to grab the body with her magic. She is met with the oddest feeling. Her horn lights up but nothing happens around the creature. It was like reaching her hoof into a bucket of water only anything touching the water goes numb and giving the impression she has no more hoof. She gets a horrible revelation about what is happening with their magic but couldn’t confirm it just like that. She will have to physically touch it to do so.
“Princess! What are you doing? It could be dangerous!”
“I have to.” She chews on her lip, raising a hoof over the creature. “I wouldn’t ask for any of you to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.”
She slowly lowers the hoof and gives the creature’s tail the most gentle of pokes. Every unicorn and Pegasus held their breath, but nothing happens. Celestia still stands, the creature is still unconscious and the eclipse is still there. For good measure, she attempts to pick it up again with magic, but to no avail. She then uses her hoof to roll the creature over onto its back, revealing its navy blue belly scales which were an odd contrast to the shades of brown it had for its body, stripes and the feathers on its head.
All of a sudden, the creature sat up, making everyone jump back, including the Princess. It grips its head in pain, most likely caused by the sudden impact, then pulls its arms away to examine them as if it has never seen them before, proceeding by examining the rest of its body before shakily standing up on its legs. Celestia finally snaps out of it and takes a step towards the reptile, rebuilding up her magic in case it decides to attack. Its eyes glow with the same cyan color as the magic that had hit her shield but actually cast no light. Her movement catches the attention of the creature but it could only glance at her before turning its head away, squinting its eyes hard. Instead it looks down the hall and crouches, getting ready to pounce for an escape away from the Princess, but the unicorn guards surrounding the reptile move to block it. This doesn’t seem to bother the creature as it tackles two of them, one of them out right fainting while the other simply grunted from the impact before rolling around with the reptile, trying his best to subdue it without magic. The pegasus could only hover close as the two fight, ready to tackle the creature if it wins, which is starting to look like a reality as it gains the upper hand slowly.
Celestia and the rest of the guard rush in to help, the princess stopping short to check up on the unconscious pony. He didn’t look injured and she highly doubts that a veteran like him would faint at a mere tackle. She uses her magic to re-awaken him quickly, starting to see she might need as much help as she can get as the creature seems to gradually get better at dodging the guards, slowly making its way down the hall. The guard stutters and looks around confused, before seeing the princess and remembering what happened.
“Y-your highness! Forgive me for doing something as shameful as fainting!” He sputters our, quickly bowing his head.
“It’s quite alright, It’s not like we’ve faced something like this creature before. Now come help out your comrades, It seems the creature is started to grow accustomed to its body in this world.” She states as she gallops down the hall towards the combating group. Her statement however is only a theory but so far it makes sense. The way the creature examined itself was as if it never had a body like that before which supports a random thought she had when she watched her magic and her sister’s magic form a circle in front of the eclipse. When she saw the cyan magic shoot out of the circle, her mind suggested it could have been a portal to another world.
“Actualy your highness, It wasn’t fear or surprise that caused me to faint.” Stated the guard running beside her. “When it tackled me, it touched my horn and then I felt my magic, I guess you can say, turn off.”
“That’s a very disturbing description... ”
The guard uses magic to catch one of his comrades who gets thrown away
“…But it seems you’re fine with magic now.” Celestia makes a quick assessment in her head then gives out new orders.
“Unicorns pull back while the pegasus engage! The creature seems to be able to cancel out magic and even temporarily nullify the magic within you on contact with your horn!”
Immediately the unicorn guards jump back, but before the pegasus could replace them, the reptile dashes out of the incoming pile at a much faster speed. Celestia and her guards rush after it before they can lose sight of it but just before the creature can turn the corner, Luna suddenly appears with her own guards which she gathered on the way up from the barracks. She now finds herself face to face with this new and unknown creature, but before she can do or say anything, it jumps and reaches for her horn.
“LUNA!” Celestia yells out of instinct. “DANCE!”
The odd order had stunned all of the guard and even the creature it seems as they now watch the Night Princess spin around and slam her back hoof against the side of the reptile’s head, sending it into the wall which cracks from the force of impact. But strangely enough, the creature recovers fast and now finds itself dodging all of Luna’s graceful hoof strikes.
The guards can only stand and watch in awe as one of their princesses single hoofedly pushes back the being they all had trouble to simply stop together.
“This is amazing!”
“I never knew a pony could fight like that in real life!”
“It really does look like they’re dancing!”
Celestia didn’t really wanted to let her sister fight like again that but it was the only thing she could think of for her own safety.
“Luna! Don't let it touch your horn! It can cancel magic on contact!”
This advice wasn’t needed because another rear hoof lands on the side of the reptile's head again, only this time it spun its body around to deflect it and slams its own clawed foot on the side of Luna’s head, now sending her to the same wall.
“LUNA!” Celestia bellowed as she flares her wings and prepares to fight the creature herself.
The reptile recoiled in pain as if it had just stared directly into the sun when it looks at Celestia and prepares to run away but all of the guards now completely block his escape. It closes his eyes and suddenly bolts towards the Sun princess, eyes closed tightly. Celestia moves out of the scaly projectile’s way as it smashes into the opposing wall next to the balcony.
“Oh no! After it! It’s going to escape!”
Unfortunately she was right as the reptile recovers from the collision, it runs to the balcony and launches off with all of its might into the darkened sky. All of the pegasus fly after it but the force with which it launched itself off had given it a massive head start and was simply gliding away towards the clouds.
“We must catch up before it gets into the clouds!”
“It’s too far we’ll never make it!”
They watch as the creature turns its head around to look at them and gives them a large mocking grin, only to be hit in the face with a brick from the demolished wall all the way back at Canterlot castle. The Night Princess, apparently unhindered from being sent into a wall, had used her magic to shoot a piece of debris at the creature, now watching it fall into the Everfree forest.
“HUZZAH! Direct hit!”