It had only been a week after Tirek's defeat, and already Twilight Sparkle was dreading the role of being princess of friendship. Sure, she liked that she finally knew what her role as a princess would be, but now, she had to deal with stuck-up nobles and annoying foreign dignitaries wishing to meet her for the umpteenth time since her move to Ponyville four years ago. Her friends all had her back, but even they had their own dreams and jobs, which led to them being absent most of the time, which meant she was going to be bored all day long.
Or at least she thought so, until a letter from Princess Celestia appeared.
“Dear Twilight Sparkle,
It is with great sorrow that I must ask you and your friends help once again. I wish I could tell what I need help with, but I am afraid even I don't fully understand what is going on. What I can tell you is that my sister has been having terrible nightmares for the past week. I know that you do not wish to have your hoof in anything adventurous for quite some time, but I feel only Luna's first friend from after her banishment will be able to help, and that having all of the Elements of Harmony in a close proximity to each other should this turn out to be as bad as I fear is necessary. I am not ordering you or your friends to come, but asking you as an equal and the others as a friend, 'Please come and help my sister.' I await your reply.
Your fellow Princess,
Princess Celestia.”
“SPIKE,” Twilight yelled, not because Spike was far away, he was right next to her, but because he was a heavy sleeper.
Spike awoke slowly, even though Twilight yelled right next to him. “What is it Twilight, couldn't you see that I was napping?”
Completely ignoring his protests at being woken up, Twilight handed the letter to Spike, whose eyes were as large as physically possible after he finished reading it. “I'll let the others know,” he said, already knowing that they would all want to go to Canterlot to help Princess Luna.
…
It had not even been an hour, and already the six ponies who were collectively known as the Elements of Harmony were at the train station waiting for the next train to Canterlot. “Ah don't see why y'all still don't have a train all your own, Twi,” Applejack, the element of honesty, said to Twilight. At this, almost as if the universe had heard Applejack and deliberately wanted to embarrass her, a train pulled up to the station with the name “Friendship Express” on it and a stallion with a tan coat, black mane, and a gear as his cutie mark stepped off and bowed to Twilight.
“Princess Celestia sends her regards, your Highness, and wishes you to keep this train for any of your personal and diplomatic purposes.” Applejack was left speechless, and it showed with her jaw going slack. Rainbow Dash, the element of loyalty, merely laughed at Applejack's situation and expense.
“And that, AJ, is why you keep you mouth shut. So the universe doesn’t prove you wrong and make you a laughing stock,” Rainbow said between gasps. This got chuckles from the others and an out right laugh from Pinkie Pie, the element of laughter.
Just before Twilight and the others got on, Spike came up to the platform carrying his own luggage. “Okay, Twi. I packed everything we are gonna need.”
“That's sweet Spike, but I want you to stay here and look after the castle. After all it's the library until a new one can be built,” Twilight said, which seemed to upset Spike a little, though he immediately put on a brave face, not unlike that which he put on when he was defending Twilight from the rest of the main six during Discords return two years ago.
“You got it, Twi,” He said, with a hint of sadness in his voice. I never do anything with you guys, anyway. You'll probably end up saving Equis again, which you absolutely forbid me from having any part of, he thought to himself.
As Twilight and her friends got on the train, a shadow was watching from the corner of the train station, and though it could not speak, it grinned at the fact it had found the perfect village to become the first of his many conquests, as it fed and thrived on what was negative energy, which came from this village more that anypony would think. Just before she got on, though, Twilight looked to where the shadow was, thinking she was being watched. What she saw was merely a wall, and she chocked the feeling up to nerves.
…
Celestia was worried for her sister, even though she had sent a letter to Twilight, she knew that the chances were slim of them being able to help Luna. She remembered when this had started a week ago.
One week earlier
“Sister,” Luna exclaimed, hoping to draw Celstia's attention away from all of the paperwork she was doing. “We may have a problem. This got a look of concern from Celestia.
“What do you mean, Luna,” she asked, with concern and a hint of fear in her voice, turning away from the huge pile of paperwork.
“I've gotten a feeling I haven't experienced since a thousand years ago. Not since that night,” Luna said with fear being the main tone in her voice. Even without that, though, it would be obvious she was speaking of when she, as Nightmare Moon, had been banished to the moon. The fear in Celestia's eyes became insanely obvious.
“Sister, you don't think...” Celestia trailed off, knowing what the answer would be. When Luna nodded, Celestia almost immediately went in to a fear driven rant, stopping only when she remembered what had happened four years ago. “But that's impossible. The Elements stripped Nightmare from you. You have nothing to fear.” She then put a wing around her sisters shoulder and drew her close. “We have nothing to fear,” she said, emphasizing the '”we” of her statement
Just as Luna smiled, a look of fear came across her face, and her eyes became that of a cornered animal who was about to die and knew it, but didn't believe it.
“No, no ,no, nonononononono, Celestia don't you see, this is worse than Nighmare. The legend and the prophecy of the Shadow is being fulfilled, and nopony, not even us, will be able to stop it,” Luna shouted, getting out of Celestia's grip and looking at her with those eyes. She then began to speak nothing but what would appear to be gibberish, but was a language the two sisters knew well, as it was their birth tongue. It came from a time when the entire planet was at war with itself, and both knew what Luna was speaking was the prophecy of the Shadow.
“On the twenty thousandth year after the fall of darkness, after a great shadow wished to consume and destroy love and failing, after the return of a being that consumed magic and left the planet to die, the spark of fear and hate that would come from these events will cause the first king to rise and return to his blackened throne to rule over the planet. Many will attempt to defeat him, with all of them failing. Three of his broken enemies will become embodiments of fear and hate, and further bring Equis into shadow. Not one pony, not even those of the royal family will be able to stop him, for he is the shadow that consumes hope that ponies live on.”
This was the prophecy that only the two alicorn sisters knew about, and knew that once King Sombra rose, that the ending of this prophecy was in sight. Many ponies believed that all prophecies rhymed, but those of great importance don't, ones where the ending is not fully set in stone. This sounded more like a fortune telling, but even an earth pony, those least connected to magic, could feel the magic behind these words, and an alicorn would cower in to the fetal position if they hadn't cast a shield to protect the from the magic, and even then, they would be in fear for twenty-four hours after hearing it, and Celestia was sorely tempted to do just that, but concern for her sister was able to pull her out of it and put Luna under a sleeping spell that would cast her into a merciful, dreamless sleep, though a week later, this was not the case, as Luna frequently screamed in her sleep, always saying, in one way or another, that they would fall.
That was in the first hour, and it only got worse from that point onward.
The present
Celestia knew that, eventually, Luna would go insane from what was going on, if she hadn't done so already, which is why she had literally enlisted any and all magic theory scholars and students, regardless of their proficiency in the subject, to try and help Luna, with “try” being the word of the week, as nothing worked up to that point.
She hoped that Twilight skill with magic would at least ease Luna's pain, though it was unlikely, as nothing like this had happened before in recorded history.
A knock on the door leading into her bedroom brought her out of those thoughts.
“Princess,” one of the guards said, “Princess Twilight and her friends have arrived at the castle. Should I have an escort brought down to lead them here?”
“No. They know the way to the throne room. Tell them I will meet them there.”
“Yes, your Highness.”
Celestia moved to the door as she heard the guards hoofsteps fade away. She had no desire to be seen by anypony except those who knew the situation, and even then only a few, as she had been crying ever since this had started and did not wish for herself to be seen, as this would cause worry, and eventually, panic. She cast an invisibility spell on her self and made her way to the throne room to inform Twilight and her friends about the situation.
…
Meanwhile, on the Tip of the Spear, John and the others were on their way to the bridge/hanger. The dream John had had before the alarms started blaring was in his mind, as well as the warning the creature, who, unbeknownst to John, was named Discord, that this whole mission was a ploy so that he, and everyone aboard, could be killed, though he decided not to say anything to the others, as he knew the others would think he was crazy. When he made it to the hanger, he saw Ken, Lily, and Maruco at the consoles.
“Artemis, what the hell is going on,” Ken asked. “I tought you said everything was okay, including our flight plan to the system.”
As soon as he said this, an AI holotank came to life and the AI who was Artemis appeared. “I did, but you know how unpredictable slipspace can be, or must I remind you of what happened three years ago during our job with the covenant.” Artemis wasn't being vague, as they had only had one covenant contract in the past four years, and that was the one she was referring to.
After a second of silence, “Good point,” Ken said ending that conversation before John came over and brought it up again.
“Whats going on!?”
Artemis responded by saying, “Slipspace seems to be more unstable than it usually is, and this is causing malfunctions in the engines. I don't know when we're going to make it to our destination, if we get there at all.”
As she said this, the others made it to the hanger, all in their combat armor. Before they could ask what was going on, Artemis told them the same thing she told John.
After she finished explaining this, laughter was heard from everywhere at once. John recognized this laughter, but before he could say anything, Discord said, “Oh so many new toys. Too bad Celestia doesn't let me near anything important.” Everyone turned to look at the door they had com from to see Discord leaning on the door frame. They all moved to draw their weapons, but Discord just snapped his fingers and the weapons were replaced with balloon versions with the real ones at Discords feet.
Maruco was the first to speak, while the others were still staring at their balloon weapons, speechless. “What the hell are you, and where are your nuts so I can kick 'em.”
Discord simply laughed at this. He snapped his fingers and Maruco was immediately in a cage. He tried to get out, but the bars were somehow not bending, which meant he was stuck.
“Now, now, I don't think you want to do that. After all, why would you want to beat up possibly the handsomest being that ever existed,” Discord said, with a sly grin on his face.
“I don't know. Find him, than give me a reason I would you fuc-.” Maruco was silenced when Discord simply snapped his fingers and no sound came from him.
“Ah, ah. Can't have that where you all are going,” Discord said, smiling, as he walked to the console that was engineering. “As I told all of you in your dreams last night, you can't be where you're going and live on the 'shoot first' saying. Besides,” he said, shrugging as he said it, “you are important in what's going on, even if you don't know how you are important.” At this, he snapped his fingers yet again, and only a second after, the ship stopped shaking as much as it was. “Now, that's better. You all will survive to your destination, and remember what I said about the locals,” Discord said, with that last part in sing-song, before disappearing in a flash of light. Maruco had been freed from the cage and he was able to talk again.
“That's it. I know I've only seen that asshole twice, but I already want to find him and gut him slowly and painfully, while shooting up his goddamn kneecaps,” Maruco said, with a blind rage in his voice.
Before he could go outright nuclear, though, Artemis came over their radios and told them that whatever happened just made them come out of slipspace at their destination.
“How? It was supposed to take us three weeks just to get halfway to the system, and you're saying we got here in ONE DAY,” Ken yelled, obviously not believing what just happened.
“I don't think that's important, Ken. That thing said that he had been in all of our dreams last night, which leaves two explanations. Either A: we're all crazy as hell, or B: we all had the same dream and somehow it crossed over into all of the others, though how that second one explains what just happened, I have no idea,” Lily said, which did calm Ken down somewhat, though he was starting to agree with Maruco about what he wanted to be done to Discord, even though no one aboard knew his name, and maybe a few things for which a name hasn't been invented yet.
…
Back in Canterlot, Celestia was explaining what had happened a week prior with Luna, leaving out the prophecy, because even in modern Equistrian, it still had the effect it has in the royal sisters birth tongue. “... and that's why I called all of you here today.”
To say that Twilight and her friends were worried for Luna would be accurate, but only if you also said they were terrified of the power that caused this. After all, you know it's powerful if it causes the Princess of the night, who is able to control and change her dreams at will, to have nightmares every sleeping hour and she not be able to do anything about it.
“Don't worry princess, we'll help fix whatever is going on with Luna,” Twilight said, her voice full of confidence.
“I know you will Twilight. You are the most gifted alicorn in magic I have known,” Celestia said. She knew what she was saying was, at least, a partial truth, if not an outright lie.
As a guard came into the throne room, unbeknownst to anypony in the room, a mysterious figure was watching this scene through a scrying mirror in a far away village whose name only those who lived in it knew. Seeing this, the stallion began to pack. It took him only a few minutes, as he had saddlebags with what he would need in them. He took one last look around the room, and then disappeared in a flash of green light.