The weather had not cleared up at all, it was now thundering to no end. Everytime Twilight tried to start reading, a flash which was quickly followed by a large boom would startle her out of her reading.
Twilight’s horn glowed purple and a magenta bubble formed around her. It made everything on the inside of the bubble soundproof. She could finally read the book in peace.
She took a quick glance out of the window at the pouring down rain and thought about how all the pegasi in the weather patrol were most likely throwing a fit at not being able to control the clouds. She seen a flash of lightning,but didn’t hear any thunder. She was pleased with the effectiveness of her spell.
She used her magic to turn the pages of the book and started to read.
Lycanthropy- the term in which a pony is able to transform or gain wolf-like features. The term derives from ancient pony language Λυκάνθρωπος. Sometimes used to associate ponies turning into any animal, although the correct term is Therianthropy which in ancient language is θηρίον. see Therianthropy for details on the subject.
Twilight was confused, this was all just legends, myths, not actually real. Whoever led her to this book must be crazy. The book was even telling her to find another book that would give her information on the other word. She didn’t know what the other word was anyway, it was written in a language that was around a couple hundred years old.
So why would somepony lead her to this book when it was obviously a fiction story, even though it seemed to be written like a reference guide then an actual story.
She kept on reading, but it only gave causes, like if it was a disease. It had written that dark magic was used to transform ponies as well. It also kept mentioning wolves and ponies taking on a wolf form or ponies gaining features that were similar to wolves.
She started to just flip through the pages and not really care anymore what the book had written down, it was all just make believe anyway. Then she seen a picture in the book that had caught her eye. She quickly flipped back and when she finally got to the picture, she was stunned. She had seen this picture before, it was of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna atop a cloud with rainbows behind them. Luna’s head turned, looking away from the Princess of the sun. It was the picture from her Elements of Harmony book. She wondered how this had anything to do with anything. She began to read the text beneath it.
Everypony knows the legend of the mare in the moon, the night goddess being sealed away in the moon for a thousand years. Upon her return, all of Equestria will experience everlasting night.
Some believe that after she was imprisoned, a group of ponies that called themselves the Night Templars, which worshipped the goddess of the night with a passion, threatened to overthrow the sun goddess and bring the night goddess back. They were immediately banished to the Everfree Forest for their treason. Most of the ponies that were banished had extreme training in the different schools of magic, which mainly consisted of Conjuration and Alteration. The cult started using their knowledge to perform dark magic and tried summoning the hideous nightmares of Tartarus. Some believe that Timberwolves were caused by their practices.
Twilight only shook her head and thought to herself, This is ridiculous. There is no way that there were ponies that tried to overthrow Celestia.
She couldn’t help but think though, if the book was telling the truth. Nopony knew about Nightmare Moon until she had mentioned her when she actually was set free. The book that told her that was dead on too, with how she would escape and what she would do, even how to defeat her. She also remembered the look she received from the Princess when she told her she had read it from a book. It seemed she was confused on how she gained possession of the book.
She was definitely going to have to ask Princess Celestia about all of the things she has discovered, a whole nother library underneath the library, this odd book that was starting to scare her just a bit, and her nightmares.
She looked up at the clock that was across the lobby. The minute hand moved and shown to be two-thirty five in the afternoon. Her mind instantly switched over to food. She hadn’t eaten anything yet today. She decided on going to get something to snack on after she left the hospital, if the rain would let up that is.
She looked back down at the book, found where she had left off and continued to read.
Around three hundred years after the goddess of the night had been sealed in the moon, the Night Templars attacked Canterlot. Their goal was to overthrow the Princess of the sun. A battle had started in the middle of the capital city. See “Battle for the Night” for details.
During the battle the Night Templars had transformed into beasts that took the lives of many citizens and royal knights. The beasts moved with the night and hunted down any pony involved in the battle. Some say these ponies had learned magic from a Nightmare and took the form of wolves.
In the final hour of the battle, the goddess of the sun used her magic to raise the sun which changed the vile creatures back into their original form. The ponies were then banished to the moon alongside Nightmare Moon. This hybrid...
Twilight caught something out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and seen the doctor standing next to her bubble, knocking on it.
She let the spell dissipate and looked at the pony.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for around five minutes now,” he said.
Twilight apologized and packed the book into her saddle bag. She stood up and was let back into the office where she and the doctor spoke last.
“Please, sit down Twilight,” the doctor pony said. He looked exactly the same as he did last time when she came. He was wearing the same white overcoat, the kind that you always see doctors wearing, with a black and red pen tucked into his shirt pocket.
Twilight sat down as the doctor asked her, “Did the medication work well? I take it that that’s why you’re here.”
The lavender unicorn nodded and replied, “They didn’t exactly work.”
The doctor looked at her with a look of confusion. “That’s one of the strongest Benzodiazepine we have here in the hospital.” He looked at her like she was crazy. “The ingredients in those pills are extremely rare in these parts of Equestria. You should have had a nice night sleep with nothing being able to interrupt you, except the sunlight to wake you up.” He leaned back in his chair and started scratching his head. “How much did you take?”
Twilight took the bottle out of her saddlebag and gave it to the doctor. “What it says on the bottle. The instructions are pretty simple. “Two pills with water.”
The white coat wearing pony kept scratching his head in confusement. “Well then, I don’t know what to tell you so, try them again tonight is all I can really say.” He stood up and went over to a filing cabinet, opened one of the drawers, took out a manila colored folder, opened it and began skimming through the papers inside of it. “Alrighty, Miss Sparkle,” he began while pulling a paper from the folder and sliding the piece of parchment across the table to her. “If you would just fill out this form,” he paused and stared into the unicorns eyes, “Truthfully.” He looked over at his desk and picked up a quill with ink on it and let her take it from him with her magic.
Twilight began to fill the form out. It mainly asked about personal information such as, allergies, other hospitals you’ve been to, and family medical history. She finished by writing her signature at the bottom of the paper and the form to the doctor. She figured it was just so the hospital could register her in their system. She handed him the form and asked, “So what should I do now.?”
The doctor pony looked at her and said, “I would suggest taking three pills instead of two,” he scratched at his chin, “But I don’t know the kind of side effects from taking an extra.” He looked at Twilight and frowned, “Wouldn’t want you overdosing by accident and killing yourself. You have to remember that this is some pretty strong stuff and can cause some serious harm to your body if not used correctly.”
Twilight nodded her head and replied, “Okay.” She put the bottle of pills back into her bag. “I’m not going to do anything stupid like that.”
“Good,” the doctor said, “I don’t want anything like that being put on my record.” He walked over to the office door and opened it. “Well, I believe we’re done here now correct?”
Twilight couldn’t think of anything else that she wanted to tell him.
She thought to herself, I’ve been having nightmares where I’ve killed multiple innocent ponies and then I get torn to shreds by some monster and then it seems that my dreams sort of come true. She wasn’t going to say that though of course. She didn’t want the doctor to think that she was crazy or anything, if he didn’t think that already.
As she walked out of the office, the doctor said, “If there’s anything else that bothers you and that medication doesn’t work again tonight, then just come back here and we’ll see if we can do something else for you.”
Twilight nodded her head and thanked him for the assistance.
The doctor smiled and said, “No problem Miss Sparkle.”
Twilight Sparkle walked out of the office and back out into the hallway. She stopped and checked her saddle bag to make sure everything was still situated and that she had everything.
The rain had let up a little bit, but not by much. Twilight cast a waterproof spell on herself, so that the rain would simply just slide of her body and she would be left completely dry.
As she was leaving though, she thought she felt something prick her neck. She brought her hoof up to her neck and itched at it curiously and then looked at her hoof and the ground around her. She didn’t see anything in her hoof or on the ground. She looked around to see if there was anypony else around, but didn’t see anypony else.
She just turned back around and began walking to where she was going in the first place, to get something to eat. Her stomach started to grumble just thinking about food. She was going to stop at the first restaurant she seen.
It only took about a couple minutes before she got something to eat, luckily, there was no line. Canterlot was even more empty than before, Twilight only seen one other pony on the streets, and she had been moving quite quickly, most likely to avoid being outside. She wished that more ponies stayed so Canterlot didn’t feels so abandoned, it made her feel somewhat depressed not seeing all the ponies around doing their daily jobs and having fun.
She would ponder on those things later, what was important right now was the Daffodil sandwich she had ordered. The waiter had just just brought her the order and before the waiter had asked if she needed anything else, she was already about halfway done. Rarity would have thrown a fit at how she scoffed the food down and left crumbs all over the place. She didn’t care, she hadn’t eaten in a day and this was probably the only chance she would get to eat anything.
As she ate, she thought of what she was going do next, was she going to go back and find the Corporal and help investigate the alley some more, or go talk to the Princesses on what she found so far and then have an honest discussion about the nightmares that she was having, but then Twilight thought about the room that was hidden beneath the library. It seemed like it was larger than the actual library, running underneath the entire city. It was most certainly interesting.
The purple unicorn looked out the window and noticed that the rain had stopped to nothing but a minor drizzle. There were giant puddles in the middle of the street though, slowly draining somewhere that she couldn’t see from where she was. She hoped that the downpour hadn’t caused any undiscovered clues in the alley to wash away.
“Of course,” Twilight said, “Why didn’t I think of that before.” She couldn’t believe that she overlooked something so important. She took out her notepad and quill and quickly began to write things down and talking to herself while she did.
“If it had rained the night of the death, then things that would have been there had to wash away,” she continued to write everything she was saying down, “But, those things that were washed away just wouldn’t have been disappeared, they would have followed the water flow and gathered up somewhere.” She was quite pleased with herself now. She was going to have to revisit the alley again and find out a way to test where the water goes in different parts of the alley.
She picked up what was left of her sandwich and stuffed it in her mouth, then left a tip for the waiter. Then she quickly ran out the door and started heading back toward the alley.
The next thing she knew, there was sort of a fog creeping in around her. Confused, she stopped and started looking around her. The fog wasn’t even the normal grayish color, it seemed to be an orange that glowed brightly. The fog started to creep in even more and now she couldn’t even see what was ten hooves in front her. She tried to take a step forward, but quickly found the ground rushing up to meet her face.
She started to get back up, almost losing her balance. Tasting blood in her mouth, she started to panic.
“W...what...what’s going...on,” stumbling over her words, she stared off into the fog as her vision began to distort. She could see the buildings closest to her begin to wave back and forth as everything started to turn a bright orange color. She didn’t even know she had vomited before she smelled it on her now yellow coat. Taking a few steps forward and stumbling a bit, she found herself unable to even walk in a straight line. Unable to tell where she even was anymore, she fell up against a wall and slid down it, resting her head on the hard, wet cobblestone.
“I’ve been waiting for you...Twilight Sparkle,” an ominous female voice said.
Twilight was too exhausted now to lift her head, so she only moved her half closed eyes around, looking for the source of the menacing voice.
“Don’t bother looking for me, save your remaining energy for the times ahead,” Twilight’s head started to throb as the bodiless voice continued. “It’s been quite some time since we last spoke Sparkle. Now that I finally have the chance, you will listen to what I must say.”
Twilight started to groan as blood trickled out of her mouth and nose. “Who...who...are you?”
“That is not what is important right now. What is important is letting me finish what I have to say,” the voice scolded at her. It seemed to not have any patience. “Now, you will not tell...Celestia...anything that you have discovered nor will you tell that guard that has been assigned to you either.”
Twilight’s vision began bending even farther, as she couldn’t tell where she was anymore and all she seen was a vibrant orange.
“Princess...help,” Twilight tried to call out, but couldn’t muster anything more than a slight muffled noise.
“Celestia isn’t here anymore and won’t answer you anymore either. All there is left...is me,” the voice told her.
“Please...stop...it hurts,” Twilight could feel tears forming underneath her eyes. “What do...you want...from...m-m-me?”
“When you wake up, you will know what to do. I’m the only one that you can trust now. The Princess is now your enemy, the guards are out to get you, and your friends in Ponyville are not at all your friends.”
Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, slowly closing them and slipping into unconsciousness, the only thing she heard was an echoed dark voice saying, “Trust me.”
- - -
The Corporal stood in Princess Celestia’s personal quarters, called by special summons.
“You wanted to see me Princess?” Archie asked. He was wondering why he was called down, usually he gets his orders directly from his commanding officer.
The Princess’ brightly colored mane flowed in the breeze produced by the open window. Her head hung low and a depressed look on her face.
“I know how things have been going right now and how we are possibly in extreme danger,” her head turned to look out the window, “But we must endure through these now troubled times,” she turned to look back at Archie, “I believe you were the one that was assigned to guard my most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. Am I correct?”
“Yes ma’am. I was told to guard and help her with anything that she needed.” He wasn’t quite sure what this was about, but he was sure that he would be told here very soon.
The goddess of the sun stood up from her pink pillow and started walking over to Archie. “I feel that something is troubling her right now and I want you to make sure she’s okay.”
Archie saluted, “Yes Princess. I won’t let you down.”
“I know that something is troubling her. If she won’t tell you what’s wrong, than bring her to me so we can talk.” Celestia thought that Twilight was going to be able to solve this case easily, but it seemed that even her most faithful student was having a toll taken on her by the murder and unnatural weather. “Just make sure she stays safe, okay?”
“Don’t worry my Princess,” he saluted again, “She’ll be perfectly fine.”
The Corporal started to walk out of the room, when Celestia called for him again. “Wait.”
Archie turned around to face the Princess and was handed a gold star with the Princess’s insignia on it. “Is this a promotion ma’am?” he asked.
Celestia shook her head and replied with a simple no. “In the Guard you are still but a Corporal, but by wearing this badge on your chest, your officers will know that you are on mission given to you directly by my and they won’t think twice of trying to stop you or giving you an order of any kind.” Her bright multi colored mane still continued to flow beautifully. “You are to not be stopped by anypony else until you have completed this mission. Do you understand?”
Archie nodded. “Good, you are now dismissed.”
Corporal Archie actually never wanted to join the Royal Guard, he only did because his older brother did, and he wanted to be just like him. He thought he’d be able to find his own special talent by himself, but didn’t know what to do with his life. Being the only blank flank unicorn in his class all the way throughout his school experience never really gave him a break, constantly being made fun of. He hardly got any recognition from his parents when he was little and he never loved any mare. His childhood wasn’t at all perfect.
Yet, when the only pony he looked up to, his big brother, signed up for the Royal Guard and was soon accepted, he wanted to follow in his hoof steps and become a Guard. Of course it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t physically built for the type of endurance training he had to do. He nearly ruined himself from breaking both his hind legs, his front left hoof, his nose, and jaw. He had certainly went through a lot, but when his brother was a Sergeant in the Royal Guard, he could get through some loopholes and dodge some complications that he would’ve had.
In only two months, he had been accepted into the Princess's personal Royal Army, and as a Corporal too. He didn’t have much authority and mainly served as a Quartermaster on most days and did a lot of guard duty, but it was worth it, because he had finally earned his cutie mark and he couldn’t have been more thrilled. His parents still hardly cared for him and thought that he was a failure for having the army be his final choice. He told them that this was his destiny and that he would live like this for the rest of his life if he had to. They moved away from Canterlot and went to Manehatten shortly after he had enlisted. So not having any parents to irritate him meant that he didn’t really have anything holding him back.
He was a good at what he did, because he was good at following orders and was able to do what he was told with little to no problems.
He thought that he looked good in his golden clad armor that shone off his bright white coat, really complimented his dark blue eyes and his bright red mane. Being in the Guard had its advantages of having a free living quarters, even though it was a barracks, and not having to really pay for much gave him time to be able to keep himself looking really nice. He even had free dental. He knew that he would be able to find a mare soon enough. That had yet to come true.
Now, he was receiving special assignments from the Princess to protect an important pony. If he could get through all of this, he might just get promoted.
Twilight didn’t even really seem like that bad of a pony, besides asking too many questions, she was already easy to handle, but now he wasn’t just escorting her, he was now her personal bodyguard and couldn’t let anything happen to her. It couldn’t really be that hard.
He had checked her room in the castle and she wasn’t there, so he was now going to the library to see if he could find her. He had just arrived at the library when it started to pour down rain again.
“Hello,” he called out as he entered the library, “You here Twilight? Hello...” Where could she have possibly gotten to? He could’ve sworn she said that she was going to the library to find more research.
Ka-Boom!
The Corporal jumped a bit as he heard the lightning bolt sizzle and crack, which was answered by an echoing thunder.
There was nopony in the library but him. He didn’t want to have to go out in the storm, but he had to find Twilight. So he left and started heading to wear the crime happened. Maybe she had just gotten trapped by the rain while looking for more clues in the alley.
He could feel the rain hit him in the face as he ran through the storm. It stung a little bit, so he cast a spell to keep the rain from hitting him. Now the rain was coming down so hard that he could hardly see what was in front of him. He would eventually get to the alley, and he sure hoped that Twilight was there.
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