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The Origin of the World
In the beginning, there was a vast land, but in it, nothing but darkness. It was unlike the darkness is today, it was substance, and it was alive. It strangled the very earth and the sky, and tainted them.
But one day, amidst The Darkness, emerged another existence. It had neither shape nor color; it was merely a faint conscience. It was weak and afraid of the darkness, so it took refuge in the core of the planet, where The Darkness’s tendrils did not reach. In there, he found a faint source of heat and life, some sort of seed, and that seed was the very core of existence. Without it, the barely existing world would merely fall apart.
Of course, that only existence did not know of that, so it fed upon that seed. Upon ingesting that strange source of energy, it did not destroy it, they became one. And as a single being, they completed each other, The Existence in need of energy to survive amidst The Darkness, and the seed needing a mind of its own for it to thrive. And it waited, hidden, while its power grew, not knowing for how long, since time was yet to be.
Its power growing far too great for it to hide, The Existence arose from the earth. Upon feeling the presence of such power, The Darkness attacked it with all its might. But the creature had no physical form for it to destroy, as it was a mere conscience. Then, The Darkness tried to surround it and destroy it within itself. But as The Existence was too strong, it rose into the air, and far away from the land, and with great power, it burst in the form of a great ball of light.
The light was so powerful it was solid. It formed a large ball in the sky, and as it grew in size and strength The Darkness became smaller and weaker, but it was still alive. It ran away from the light in despair. So it tried to seek refuge in the land it once covered, and saw a part of it that was not covered in light.
The battle was over for the time being, but there was still a problem. The Existence hadn’t managed to destroy The Darkness. Its newly created light was grand and powerful, but unable to cover the entire planet. Half of it was still controlled by The Darkness, and The Existence was also weakened by the fight and unable to create another source of light such as the former.
And that way time went on. The planet always half dark and half bright. While The Darkness only tried to find a way to destroy the light source, and always with no success, The Existence tried to understand the world it lived in and the extents of its powers. As its knowledge of the world grew, so grew its self awareness, and it gave itself a name. its name was now Solaris, and its creation was the Sun.
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“Wait, so what are these tales all about?” Asked Twilight.
“Oh for…” He paused while staring at the ceiling with a contemplating look “…any real god that may be there’s sake, have you been paying attention to me at all? This is the story of Equestria don’t you see? This isn’t a fairy tale, its reality.”
“So what you’re telling me is that there is a greater force there and that Celestia didn’t create the sun herself?” Sid sighed and proclaimed “That’s the whole point of my writings! Just finish the damn story and see for yourself, or you want me to spoil the ending for you?”
The word spoiler made Twilight shiver
“No, please, no need for that, I’ll keep reading, just let me continue. No spoiling okay?” Sid then said with a discrete smirk “And the murderer is actually..”
“LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU, wait what?” Sid laughed “Just keep on reading. We don’t have all eternity do we?”
Outside of the heavy basement doors, now blocked by two large pillars made of magical energy, was Spike, in the front desk of the library, deeply concerned about Twilight’s mental health. She had been in that room for a whole day already, and hasn’t come out even to eat. He remembered that look she had from the previous incident with the reports, but it seemed like there was nothing out of date or anything like that. Then the little bell attached to the front door rang.
“Hey there Spike. What’s up?” Said a voice coming from below.
“Oh, hi there girls. Not much, I’m just taking care of the library again; Twilight seems to be busy with some research. So, what are you doing her…” his voice trailed off “Oh crap, I forgot” he thought.
“Mah sister said you’d be taking care of us tonight, an we had some new ideas to earn our cutie marks!” Said Aplebloom enthusiastically.
“Oh, about that, I’m sorry but I have to take care of the library here, so I can’t leave. Sorry girls but I can’t play with you today.” The three of them lowered their heads at the simultaneously, with saddened looks on their faces. Then, once again at the same time the three rose up their heads and Sweetie Belle said “Well you can’t leave the library to play but that doesn’t mean you can’t play with us right?”
“I don’t like where this is going”
“You know what this means?” .Then they all shouted precisely synchronized.“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS LIBRARY RESEARCHERS!”
“I guess Twilight is going to have to wait” Spike sighed.
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Slowly, Solaris tried to create, in the bright side of the planet. He spread some of the energy from the seed in the air. What was formed was the wind. But it grew far too strong and destructive, so Solaris raised the earth and created mountains to weaken it. The wind slowly tore pieces from the earth, creating sand. Then, he took more of the energy from the seed, infusing it in the ground. What sprouted from it was water. The water flowed from the earth in large torrents, creating the oceans and rivers.
He stopped and contemplated. It was all new and beautiful. But what was lacking was a new existence. Then he took the earth and the water, and giving them energy, he created a tree. The tree grew, but soon withered and died away. Something was missing. He tried again and again, and although in many different shapes all of them eventually died.
Soon he came to realize. It was the Sun itself. It gave them the energy to grow, but it also drained them. Life needed the Sun as much as rest from it. So he saw what to do. He needed The Darkness.
At first he tried to reason with it. But it was hostile and only attacked. The only solution was to also make it part of himself, just as the seed. He couldn’t cover the whole land in light, so he couldn’t create another Sun. So he took a large piece of land and raised it to the sky. With the power of the seed, he linked it to the Sun, so it would still give the world light, but also allow it to rest. He named it the Moon.
The light weakened the darkness, and with nowhere to run, it curled upon itself, and became like a small heart, denying the light around it, but too weak to fight against it.
Upon seeing the grand force at such state, Solaris then consumed The Darkness, and as a part of himself, it no longer had a conscience, it was merely another force of nature.
Now, with the balance of light and darkness, the plants could cover the land and sprout freely, and as they grew, they shaped the land and grew towards the skies.
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“Look, Twilight, I am proud to see your dedication, but time is of the essence here and you’re just taking too long with your reading” He then proceeded to take the book away from her with magic, seeing the look of disappointment in her face. “Sorry for that but you’ll have to go with the short version of the story.”
Sid then proceeded to grab a chair that was close by and throwing it under Twilight, which more fell than sat on it. She was pissed, but more because of having her book taken away. “Why won’t you just let me finish it? It’s not like I can’t try to overthrow the Princess at any time, she’s going to stay there as much as I need to, I mean, that’s exactly the problem here!”
“Yes she will, but can’t you see that someone has already started suspecting of something? You already told me that he can’t do a thing, but he can tell others. It’s only a matter of time, so get on along with it.”
She couldn’t deny it. It wouldn’t take much time before Spike would go on and tell one of her friends. That would be a nuisance she couldn’t allow. “So, let’s see, you were at the tree part right?” How did he even know? She just didn’t care anymore about all these details. She just nodded.
“So here’s how it goes: Solaris thought his creation was nice, but still too boring, it lacked conscience and a mind of its own. So he created the dragons from the earth and fire from the Sun. But the dragons were feral and destructive, so he had to create something to take care of them. And guess who it was? The two Princesses. Actually, they weren’t princesses at the time, they were just the babysitters for the dragons, so they wouldn’t destroy the whole creation that Solaris had worked so hard on.”
“Wait, so he never made them princesses? They just took over? Wasn’t he a God?”
“Calm down, I’ll get to that eventually. So, as I was saying, the two of them were named after the two greatest creations of Solaris, but he gave them only the power to hold back the dragons. He just didn’t trust himself anymore as the; let’s say, creative director of existence,so in his last direct act in this world, he, putting it bluntly, blew himself up as a large wave of energy. Wherever it hit, it would create a new existence or force. Some of it rose to the sky, creating the stars and constellations, and what hit the land, oceans and the air, became a living creature. And, of course, what spread through the veil of reality, became the very forces that hold this world together. It still acts today as a link between our planet, the Moon and the Sun, and all other forces such as light, darkness and of course, magic”
“So he blew up? Just like that? Did he die?” Sid looked at her with a face that screamed “Are you really asking me this question?”
“Let me say this in a subtle way” He coughed as someone preparing for a speech “HE BLEW UP TO PIECES! My goodness, you really can be slow sometimes. Yes, he died, all that is left of him are the forces that hold this world together. There is no living god in this land. There was one but he died. A long time ago.”
“But what became of Celestia and Luna? How did they become our leaders?”
“Just think about it for a bit. No great power around, no kings, no lords, just a bunch of ignorant creatures that had just started to exist. They had magic power enough to hold even the dragons, but knew it wouldn’t last forever, that’s not what Solaris created them for. So they just had to trick the smartest life form at the time that they had a power so great that whoever challenged them would feel the wrath of gods.”
She was just dumbstruck. The princesses were just tools in the hands of a greater power, but continued to exist after fulfilling their purpose, commanding them trough lies and deceit. They couldn’t be trusted. But one problem at a time, she had to take care of Celestia first, for her anger towards her was now bigger than ever, for she rose her like a mother, but was actually fooling not only her, but an entire kingdom.
“Now that you seem to have made up your mind, let me show you something more interesting” He tossed the book to her. “Open it up”
“Which page?” He laughed “Doesn’t matter, well get to something good anyway” She opened it at random.
“How to Murder a Fake Goddess 101?” looking through the pages she could see a large array of spells designed to distract, fool and kill someone. “I didn’t even know this kind of spell existed! How come I never heard of any of these?”
“It’s pretty simple. We haven’t been at war for a long time, and all the books containing such spells were banned as a “precaution” as to avoid any “incidents”. That’s what they want you to think anyway. It is mostly to avoid any significantly powerful uprisings, such as ours. What else could it be?”
“Wait, what war? I never read about a war as far as I remember”
“Just as you never read about these spells. It was a very long time ago. It’s in the book, after we get rid of those two royal maggots I’ll let you read it as many times as you want. For now let’s focus here” as Twilight passed through a specific page, Sid spoke up.
“Oh that one in one of my favorites, you should try it, I think it would be most useful” She looked with interest . “Spear of the Anti-mage. Sounds promising. Well then, shall we get the training started?”
“As soon as possible, but first, we must attend to an urgent matter”. “And what might that be?” She asked impatiently.
“By my calculations, you’re probably reaching the breaking point from overuse of magic, so you should dispel that barricade of yours before you…
THUD
faint” once again he sighed loudly. “Crap. Well, let her be, the stone floor of this basement may not be the best bedding in the world but at least she didn’t die when she smacked her head on it. At least she will not die of exhaustion this way.”
Twilight woke up. In her bed. She didn’t recall walking up there, and she couldn’t by any means, since she had fainted from exhaustion. Then she heard a voice coming from the other end of the room.
“Oh, you’re awake! I was really frightened seeing you fainted down there at the basement, so I dragged you up here and was just waiting for you to wake up” He then grabbed a tray from the ground. It was filled with food. It had some apples, cookies and a bowl with salad “Here, eat up, you haven’t had any food in a while and it’s starting to worry me”
She opened her mouth to protest, but her stomach roared in disagreement. She just wanted to get out of there and go back to the basement, where she would have a nice place to finish her conversation with Sid. But it was then that Sid spoke to her. “Twilight, as much as I’d love to see you screw this up and get a good laugh of it I really don’t want any more suspicions upon us than we already have, so just let me take the wheel for now”
“Wait what do you mean by that?” She didn’t have time to complain, when suddenly she was just kicked back to the insides of her mind. She looked around and Sid was nowhere to be seen. But there was something new. There was a large window, floating in the air. She looked through it and she could see what she assumed to be what her eyes were seeing, but she was no longer in control of her own body.
“Sorry if I got you worried Spike. I am just a bit stressed, that’s all” Spike laid the food in front of her “Thanks for taking care of me”.
Spike blushed “Oh, it was nothing, really. I just thought that you had freaked out again. Are you feeling better?” Twilight could feel the taste of the food although she wasn’t really eating it. It felt really strange, but she saw that she not being in control that moment might not be as bad as she thought. “Yeah, I just have to rest for a bit, I think I’ll stay at in bed for the rest of the day”
It was only then that Spike really looked at her eyes. They were all red, and it looked like she hadn’t had any sleep in a while. Or…
“Please Twilight don’t tell me you’ve been using clover again. You’ve promised me that you had stopped” He said with a really concerned tone “What? Of course not, I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately, that’s all”.
Spike was still suspicious. “Well, I don’t want to doubt you so I’ll take that as the truth. You’re like a sister to me; I don’t want to see you ruining your life because of something like that. Anyway, the crusaders wanted me to help them with another one of their crazy experiments today, but it seems I’ll have to take care of the library so I’ll just tell them to go without me”
Twilight, inside her own mind, as a spectator, had her eyes full of tears. She felt bad tricking Spike that way, he was part of her family and a great friend, but it was all for the greater good.
“No need to worry about that Spike. When was the last time you took a day off?” Spike was in shock “A day off? Then who is going to take care of the library? Owlowiscious?”
“No need to worry about that, just don’t open the library for today. I believe that Ponyville can survive a day without these books” She smile playfully. “So…You wan’t me to… not open the library today?”
“That’s it. Take a day off, go play with someone. I’ll be fine here by myself” Spike answered while walking away with a terribly hidden scared face “Okay; not opening today, I get it so I’ll be going” He then vanished in a blur, sprinting down the stairs. Just as he opened the large doors leading outside of the library, he said to himself.
“That's it. Now she’s really gone crazy”
“Sid what was that all about? I can’t stay in here, I’ve got to try out those spells!”
“Twilight, just lay low for now, if that dragon on yours comes back, you’ll still be here, at the bed, and when he finally leaves for real we’ll have some time to train. For now you can just sleep and I’ll talk to you in your mind, or have you forgotten I can do that?”
And that’s how it went for a while, Twilight continued reading about the spells, and just as Sid said, he came back to check on her after about an hour. That was when she went down to the library and started her training. The library had many books into focus and energy channeling for high power spells she never had to use, and that was just the time.
Meanwhile, Spike was roaming around Ponyville, looking for someone to help him, and that was when he stumbled upon Pinkie Pie, by the entrance of Sugarcube Corner.
“Pinkie! You’ve got to help me! Twilight has been acting strange lately and I really need some help. I know something’s wrong with her but she just doesn’t speak to me!” Pinkie then let out an enthusiastic smile and said in a single breath “We could throw her a party! I mean if she is all sad and weird we could all hide in the library, and when she comes in we go all SURPRISE, and we all have a party together so she won’t be sad anymore!”
Those outbursts didn’t impress him anymore. “No Pinkie, no parties this time. I just need to get her to open up. Could you help me get the others and take them to the library for me?”
She looked a bit disappointed, but that kind of emotion never lasted more than a few seconds on her face so she smiled again and started hopping away while she said joyfully “Okey-Dokey! I’ll get them there in no time!” He just hoped that it would work.
In a less than a single hour, Pinkie had already gathered her other four friends in front of the library and Spike was explaining the situation to them.
“Wait, so tell me if ah got that right, Twilight told’ya not to open the library for the whole day today?” Applejack looked doubtful. “That’s right, and she was locked in that basement for the whole day yesterday, and when I entered she was just staring at the wall”.
“I think all that studying made her go crazy after all these years. I always told her that would happen someday.” Said Rainbow Dash, earning some angry looks from the others.
“I think we should come inside the library to check on her, I mean, if that wouldn’t be imposing, I wouldn’t want to be a bother, she said she would be resting after all” Said Fluttershy, hiding her face behind her mane as everyone looked at her.
“I believe she’s right, if half of what Spike told us is true, we better go check on her, it’s no use standing around here doing nothing” They didn’t have much more time to ponder after hearing a loud explosion inside the library that startled them all. Then simultaneously, they all hit the doors, opening them with a loud bang, and stared expressionless at the odd scene before them.
A few minutes earlier, inside the library
“Sid, I’m not sure if this spell is really going to work, I mean, it says in here that I need some catalysts that I just don’t have right now, and it requires quite a lot of preparation…” He cut her short “Just trust me right now. Those ingredients would take days to get, just try it out already”
Twilight was already exhausted. Spell after spell, she managed to learn many new ones, all of them directed towards infiltration or murder. But there was one last spell that she was afraid to try”
“Alright, here goes nothing”
She channeled as much energy as she could towards her horn. It glowed with a strange darkened-red glow, different from the usual gentle purple glow of her other spells. And in a single burst, she released it and solidified it in the form of a long spear-shaped object, that came straight out of her horn with great force, almost knocking her down. The Spear of the Anti-mage. A powerful weapon made of pure energy. She then looked at her horn through a nearby mirror and started hopping around in joy.
“It worked! It worked! It worked!”She sang repeatedly. But behind the large explosion noise of the spell, she didn’t hear the rough opening of the door, and the 6 pairs of eyes staring at her with weirded out expressions. She froze. She had no idea of what to do, until Sid said.
“I believe it is time for you to RUN LIKE HELL!”
She then darted away from them and hid inside the basement again, barricading the doors with the little energy she still had.
“What do I do?! They saw me! And how the hay do I dispel this thing?”she stared in panic at her horn.
“Calm down already! Just do as the book says. Slowly release the energy from it to the air around you” BANG “SLOWLY! Do you want to blow your own bloody horn off?”
As she finally managed to cancel the spell and calm down a bit, she noticed the banging at her door and the screams from the other side. “Twilight! Open up this right now! What the hay was all that?”
“Yeah, open this door or I’ll break it down” Said Rainbow Dash impatient.
Then it just hit her “Wait! I should tell them what you told me Sid! They would agree to help me if I needed right? They are also being fooled by the princess!” Sid then, materialized himself in a dark cloud, right in front of Twilight and stared deep into her eyes.
“Hey, how did you get here?” His eyes then started swirling around once again, and glow with that hypnotizing light. “Twilight, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Your friends are not so… Open minded as yourself. They may not take very kindly to someone plotting against their princess. Or did you just forget that one of them is the very element of Loyalty?”
Outside of the door, four ponies and a dragon were hitting the door as hard as they could. Then Rainbow Dash had an idea. “Stay clear of the door everyone, I’m gonna fly away for a bit and hit the door at full speed. If that doesn’t break it, nothing will.”
No one dared to go against that, as stubborn as she was, she wouldn’t give up on it. And as everyone walked away from the door, she got out of the library and started flying away from it. Then, with all the strength of her wings, she charged down flying towards the door in a straight line, going full speed. A little faster and that would have been another sonic rainboom, but she couldn’t hit something with that speed, or she was going to be in the hospital for a while.
As she was seconds away from the door, it suddenly opened. She barely managed to stop from falling on top of Twilight.
“Hey there girls. What are you all doing here?”
“What are we doing here? What were YOU doing in here? Spike told us that you had been acting strange all day and we get in here and see you with that hideous contraption attached to your horn, and I just can’t allow a friend of mine to wear something so unladylike”
Applejack gave Rarity an angry look. “That aint the point here. We’re worried about you, you are our friend, and you’re starting to get us worried” Twilight tried to smile but what came out was that mad scientist grin that worried them even more. “Why would you be worried about me? It’s not like I’ve been plotting anything right?”
“No one said you were plotting anything” Said Dash, after she finally managed to recover from the almost crashing.
“Oh, whatever was that, you don’t have to worry about me, I am perfectly fine and in fully control of my mental facult..”
Her words trailed off as for the second time she fainted.
“It’s about time she stopped doing that” Thought Sid annoyed.