//------------------------------// // Through the Looking Glass into Darkness // Story: Team SKIE // by Xero Key //------------------------------// This is a fan-based work of prose. I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Equestria Girls, or RWBY. The products belong to Hasbro Ltd. and RoosterTeeth/Fullscreen Entertainment. Please support the official release. Princess Twilight Sparkle was asleep in her borrowed room in the Crystal Palace...or at least she would be if her brand new wings would stop popping up at the most inopportune moments. "How can anypony with wings sleep like this!" she complained to softly herself so she wouldn't wake her number one assistant. Right as she closed her eyes for what she hoped would be the final time that night, she was awoken by the distinctive tingle of magic being used and opening her eyes she saw that her crown was being levitated into the bag of a gold coated unicorn mare. "Thief!" Twilight cried and the mare ran out of the room and down the hall. "Stop her, she stole my crown!" The mare turned back and charged Twilight, teleporting away at the last moment. "Sorry princess, don't have time for niceties." The mare said with a scowl on her face. The mare ran into a back room away from the main hall, and Twilight and her friends followed her and tackled her to the ground, knocking the crown through a mirror. "Grimm spit!" The mare cursed before rushing through the portal herself. It wasn't long after that the other Princesses arrived. "That mare was a former student of mine named Sunset Shimmer." Princess Celestia explained. "She began to research dark magic without my approval and traveled through this mirror into another world." "We have to get my crown back, without it the Elements of Harmony are useless!" Twilight said readying a saddle bag. "Come on girls!" "No Twilight." Celestia stopped the friends. "You must do this alone, I fear what would happen if all six of you were to be trapped in that other world when the portal closes." Twilight gulped and stepped forward into the portal, barely noticing Spike running in after her. The two swirled through existence, their bodies reshaping to match their new destination. Opening her eyes she found herself facing a small biped in green and purple clothes. "Spike is that you? What...are you?" Spike looked over himself and turned around. "No idea, think it's the same thing you are." Twilight looked down at her body and saw that she was a biped as well, her limbs had digits on them, her head had her regular ears, her back had her wings adjusted to her new size...but she had no idea what she was. So Twilight did the only sensible thing to do when faced with a dramatic change...she screamed her head off. The sound of roars and howls shook Twilight from her shock. She looked up to the sky and gazed upon its shattered moon, and panicked as she saw a bird the size of building coming towards her. “Twilight! What do we do?” Spike asked as he hurriedly helped her to her feet. “Run!” Twilight shouted as the bird fired its black feathers towards them. The two ran as fast as their new bodies could take them, but it wasn’t far enough. They came across bipedal wolves and large bears, all colored black with red eyes and bone protrusions. They were surrounded on all sides. “I’m sorry Spike.” “For what?” “Not being a good mother.” “Twilight… I…” Whatever Spike was going to say was interrupted as arrows pierced the three closest monsters around them. The ground below the two formed a passage way through the horde, which the two ran down without hesitation. At the other end was a girl in a purple-white combat hoodies holding a bow in her hands with a quiver on her back. She was firing arrows into the beasts they came near her and summoning walls of rock and boulders to push the beasts back. “Hurry up you two, I can’t hold them off forever!” The girl said just before firing a bolt straight into a creature’s mouth, which exploded. Twilight and Spike ran to the girl who summoned a wall of rock to hover above them all as they ran. The three came to a cliff and the shield above them fell. “Can you fly with those wings?” The girl asked Twilight. “Not well.” “Damn. Hold on then.” The girl pushed Twilight and Spike off the cliff and jumped after them backwards, firing an explosive arrow into a crowd of monsters. The girl uses the dust and debris to form a semi-soft barrier of sand below Twilight, Spike, and herself and used it to slow their descent into the water below them, then hardened the cloud into a solid raft. Pulling off her hood to reveal purple, curled hair the girl smiled in satisfaction. “Okay, now we just use the current to drift us back into the city, the Grimm don’t usually follow anyone this far from Beacon.” “Grimm?” Spike questioned. The girl looked stunned at Spike. “Yeees~ Grimm~. Creatures of Darkness and Devestation. Sworn enemy of life and civilization. Caused a big ruckus about a month back as the harbingers of the End. Ring a bell?” “Err… Yes?” Twilight tried to act like she knew what was going on, but the girl didn’t buy it. “I can’t imagine anyone not knowing about the Grimm, nor end up at Beacon after The Fall without weapons.” The girl said turning to look at the moon, giving Twilight a view of a mark on her shoulder, three diamonds arranged to interlock together. “Rarity…?” “Hmmm? Did you say something dear?” “Sorry, you look like a friend of mine.” “Rarity is her name?” The girl hummed at Twilight’s nod. “Strange name, not a color and doesn’t remind me of a specific color either. What are your names and why aren’t you carrying a weapon?” “I’m Twilight Sparkle and this is Spike.” Spike looked rather upset at the idea of carrying a weapon everywhere. “We’re pacifists lady.” “Paci-fist?” The girl cocked her head to the side in confusion, before shaking her head. “Nevermind, I guess pacifying with your fists is good enough if you can use Aura well. Anyway, I…” The girl flipped her hair. “Am Endura Lapis, Huntress-in-Training and member of Team SKIE.” Endura looked sad as she gazed back up to the cliff they had fallen from. “At least I was…” “What happened?” Spike asked her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “The Grimm attacked the Vytal Festival, the celebration of peace between the Four Kingdoms. Atlas’ military robots turned on everyone, and we lost a lot of good people.” “I’m sorry.” Twilight said. “I…can’t imagine what that must be like. To have peace broken so easily.” “It wasn’t easy. …Oh this is our stop.” Endura stated as she got up, pulling at an invisible rope to pull them to a dock. She led them away from the docks and Twilight and Spike found themselves in a vast, but empty city. “Welcome to Vale, Twilight Sparkle and Spike. I get the feeling it will be an interesting stay.” On a roof above the three, gold horse ears surrounded by red hair with yellow highlights twitched. The woman observed them through her binoculars before sighing and putting it on her bandoleer across her chest. He black jacket had orange trim on the arm, with a dual colored red-yellow sun emblazoned on the back. As she watched the three walk away from the docks, the woman sighed again and vanished in brief flash of blue light.