//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Brotherhood of the Moon 
// by ZakTH 
//------------------------------//


Brotherhood of the Moon


Princess Celestia overlooked her kingdom. The image of a perfect ruler overlooking a perfect land. There was virtually no crime in Equestria, and through magic, any sort of drought or famine could also be easily overlooked. Yes, Equestria was in all sense of the word a paradise. But it had not always been so.

The princess returned to her suppressed thoughts of a time before, a time of violence and bloodshed. It had been a thousand years since that time, but some things never died. The things she had been driven to do and witness would haunt her for the rest of her immortal life.

"Princess?" a sudden voice shattered the princess' train of thought. She turned to see a castle guard standing in the door way of her room. "The celebration is about to begin." he said sternly. His face betraying any emotion he might have been feeling. 
"Oh, of course… I'll be down shortly." Celestia said, coming into focus with the present time. The guard gave a quick bow before turning to leave. "And also, Captain?"  She said to the guard as he left. He stopped in his place and turned back completely, offering his full attention. "Please try to lighten up, I wouldn't want anypony looking so glum on this joyous day." the guard hesitated, but gave another small bow before leaving. Celestia almost thought she saw a smile breach his defenses before he left.

And yet, the princess still felt wrong. It was almost as if she was telling herself to lighten up instead of the guard. This day was supposed to be one of forgiveness, forgetting the past to make way for the future. But she still could not shake the images of history from her sub-conscious. It was as if an omen was befalling her divine mind, giving her a glimpse of what was to come. 



Outside Canterlot Castle, thousands of ponies were cheering loudly. Music was playing, colors were everywhere, all in anticipation for the princess. The courtyard was packed with bodies, there was hardly room enough to breathe. And because the only ponies allowed in the air were guards, the third of the population that was usually unaccounted for in terms of ground space was taking up what little room there was. Still, this did not make the spirit in the room falter; the place was literally explosive with anxiety. 

Soon trumpets sounded an imperial fanfare, and anypony listening knew that royalty was about to make itself present to the common folk. The palace doors swung open, and flanked by two guards, out came the majestic Princess Celestia. Her long white legs moving toward the edge of the balcony with grace and poise. At reaching the edge, she lifted her head, spread her wings, and simply smiled to the crowd. The cheering grew. For a long time nothing happened, she simply waited for the crowd to die down. Eventually, the near endless supply of energy that was the ponies' enthusiasm cut low to allow the princess to talk. 

"Citizens of Equestria!" she said with a gallant tone. "Faithful subjects!" she added. "And my dearest little ponies, thank you all for attending this celebration." The cheering’s volume subtly increased. "As you all know, this year’s summer sun celebration was very eventful, as it was on that day a thousand years ago that The Elements of Harmony sealed my sister Luna in the moon. Well, I am happy to announce that after a millennium of anger and regret, me and my sister have set aside our differences and decided to rule once again together, as it was intended!" the cheering again rose up to meet the announcement. But there was more to the princess' speech. "I am proud to present to you all, my beloved sister, Princess Luna!" the legionous cheering suddenly changed into a collective gasp as the palace doors once again swung open, this time revealing a blue haired alicorn of smaller size. Her fur was the color of the night and her eyes sparkled like stars. She timidly stepped out of the shade of the palace halls and revealed herself in the light. More confidently, she walked over to join her sister by her side. Up until this point, the crowd had been engulfed by stunned silence, nopony expected to see Luna so soon after the incident, especially at this time of day. But as she proudly stood by her beloved older sister and let loose the same caring smile Celestia gave them, the crowd's shouts of joy reached their highest intensity.

A guard at the gate angrily rolled his eyes at all this cheering. The biggest celebration Canterlot had had in a while and he had guard the door. No one was going to attack or intrude on a free to attend public celebration. The sky patrol hadn’t sighted any griffons or dragons anywhere close to Canterlot, but security always came first, even when it obviously didn’t matter. What’s worse is he was the only one! Every damned captain of the guard and rookie in training was inside enjoying the party except for him. One of these days, he wasn’t just going to agree, in fact the next time The captain asked him to do anything stupid, he might just shove his hoof down hi-

The sound of hooves striking stone snapped him out of his inner monologue. He looked up to see three ponies in hoods waiting for entry. They nodded silently and motioned for the door. Quiet guys wearing hoods, very suspicious, but their hoods were a clean white with the image of the Princess’ sun on their sides and saddlebags. The guard figured they must have been political officials who just didn’t like sunlight. 

“Oh, you guys want in?” he said stupidly. Of course they wanted in. He almost thought he saw one of them put their hoof to their face in shame for his comment. “Well that’s okay, you guys are bit late, but the party’s just getting started. I’ll just need a name from you all and you can go right in.” He said. The three looked at each other. A mental debate passing between them that the guard was oblivious too. They all nodded to the one closest to the guard and he reached into his saddlebags. “What, do you guys have ID ca-” the guard was cut short from being stabbed through the neck. 

"Thank you again for organizing all this just for me." Luna said to her sister in a hushed tone. "I really don’t deserve this praise after the horrible things I did." she added, a light blush showing at her modesty. 
"Oh this was nothing at all" Celestia replied, titling her head to look at her sister while still paying ample attention to the crowd. "And you deserve nothing less little sister, you made a bad choice, but you are still family, and family is forever." she said smiling brighter. Luna simply could not believe this was all happening. She had expected there to be doubt, in the position of a common pony, she would not have welcomed back the monster who had kidnapped her princess and threatened to take over so eagerly, and especially not throw a party in her honor. These ponies were so understanding though, she didn't know what Celestia did, but her subjects were so much kinder than Luna remembered.

"Well, I'm happy to finally be back." Luna replied. "Maybe now we can finally have some peace and quie-" A sudden rush of air made Luna stop mid-sentence. Behind her, an arrow was now embedded in the wall, with a label dangling from its end. The label bore an image of a burning sun. Luna noticed something else though, her mane had been cut. The arrow flew mere inches from her body. Whoever fired it, had been aiming for her head. 

The royal guards did not give the archer another chance to shoot. Without missing a beat, they surrounded the princesses. Pegasi took to the air, earth ponies formed barriers from all sides of the court. A group of unicorns gathered round to finish the procedure with a shielding spell for the two royals. This was all before the crowd could come out of their stunned silence. Screams shot out as another arrow dived into a guard pony's skull, dropping him to the floor, lifeless. The shielding spell protected the princesses from any further arrows though, the assailant had failed. At this, a voice filled the courtyard. 

"Subjects of Equestria!" said the voice, obviously enhanced by magic, but having no clear source. "Do not be fooled by the humble pony before you! Luna is a dangerous tyrant, and must be eliminated! Do not fall for the tricks of the moon! This evil will be purged from the world! So says the Flames of the Sun!" With that, the voice died, and the crowd's screams increased. All Luna could do was look at her sister through her protective crystal. She was meet with the same worried look. Celestia could not hear her sister in her case, but she did see the look of mortal fright on her sister's face, and saw her mouth "They're back."



It was a dark night in Ponyville. In a cloud home above the village, Rainbow Dash was getting herself ready for bed. It had been a long day and she was tired, not that she did much of work, but man had she practiced flying. Today had been a very practice-centric day in particular; she had virtually ignored her friends and spent more time in the air than she had on the ground. Regardless of whether or not today could count as a hard day’s work, she was tired, and nothing would ruin the comfort that sleep provided.

As if answering her invitation to intrude, a knock on the door forced Dash out of her bed and to her front door.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" she said with a cranky tone as the knocking continued. She unlocked the door to see a hooded pegasus standing outside her door. Behind him was a similarly dressed pegasus. Both wore a sun on their sides. 
"Are you the pony they call Rainbow Dash?" the strange pony asked. It didn't take a genius to figure out the oddity of such a question, but just being suspicious didn't feel like taking enough action to Rainbow. She placed her hoof back on the door. 
"Yes...why?" The hooded one lunged for her. Already prepared, Rainbow slammed the door on him, catching him halfway through. Spinning around, she grabbed a nearby broom and kept turning to bring it down on his head, knocking him unconscious. The second pony burst through the door, saw his ally, and attacked. He thrusted his hoof at her in a punch, but still riding the instinct of before, Rainbow caught his hoof, twisted it, and brought the broom handle up into his face. With a bloody snout, he went down. 

And then, realization struck her. Rainbow Dash had just knocked out two strange assailants that had tried to hurt her, using self-defense techniques she never learned. They were bigger and stronger than her, but she had disabled them. She didn't even know how, it just felt right, like a current had been sweeping her in the right direction. She might have spent all night there, just looking at what she'd just done, had a window upstairs not broken with a crash. There were more. Soon a pony came down her stairs and stood stunned, looking at her, then to his allies, then back to her, back and forth for a while. A different kind of instinct took over Dash at that moment. Run. She made a dash for her door, hearing the pony quickly follow. Taking to the sky, she escaped her house at a speed no normal pegasus could match.

Rainbow Dash landed in the main section of Ponyville. She could fly no longer, already tired from all day, her wings simply could not sustain her anymore. Still, she needed to find somewhere safe. At this hour there was probably only one pony awake, and her house happened to be closest. Dash ran to the large hollow tree near the center of town, the Books & Branches Library. Not even stopping to knock, she burst through the door. “Twilight!” she yelled. Inside the library she did not find the purple unicorn, but she did find three more of the strange hooded ponies. Skidding to a halt, she ran out the door just as fast as she entered. The three gave chase soon afterwards, calling out for her to stop and for someone to catch her. 

Dash hadn’t entertained the thought very often, but there was no denying what she felt right now; Fear. Strange ponies going after her was one thing, but if they had already been to Twilight’s house, and considering she had not seen her friends all day, this whole mess might have had something to do with the Elements of Harmony. She shuddered to think of what could have happened to all her other friends. She had to find them, make sure they were safe, but first she had to get away from her pursuers, and that was not going so well. Dash often took pride in her speed, but the fact was she was tired, and she needed energy to move as fast as she did. Fate working against her, two more hooded ones appeared in front of her, and she collapsed to the floor, falling into an exhaustion fueled sleep.



Rainbow Dash woke up in a bed. A strange thing, considered where she had fallen asleep. She got up woozily, not yet fully awake. “What a weird dream…” she said to herself, before actually opening her eyes and looking at the room around her. It was very comfortable; everything was a royal purple or a shimmering gold. She could see a small breakfast laid out for her on a bedside table. Needless to say, this was not her room. Remembering the ponies from last night, she quickly fell out of the bed like it was alive. Now realized of her situation, Dash looked around for somewhere to go, a vent, a window, anything. The only opening in the room however, was the front door. “Maybe if I can just run through fast enough…” Dash thought to herself. It was a stupid plan, but her only option at this point. She threw open the door and lunged for the hall at top speed, only to smack right into the back of the pegasus guarding her door. He turned around calmly as if someone had thrown a paper ball at his head. 
“Oh, you’re awake. Did you eat yet?” The guard asked calmly.
“Get out of my way! Or I’ll…I’ll do something!” Dash said menacingly, getting into an aggressive pose. The guard simply gave her a tilted look, as if to say “What the heck is wrong with this girl?” Dash then noticed something; this guard didn’t look like the ponies from last night. This was a stark white pegasus in shining gold armor with a blue star emblem. And the room she was just in, with all the imperial colors and metals. It hadn’t crossed her mind in the shock of being captured, but the room matched Twilight’s descriptions of Canterlot Castle, and this guard was one that was loyal to Princess Celestia.
“Well…okay” said the guard moving to let Dash leave. “But the Princess wishes to see you after breakfast, so I’ll have to lead you right there.” Dash eased up and blushed a little with embarrassment.
“Uh yeah, okay…” she said, starting to walk out the door. Before leaving though, she suddenly remembered something. “But first…” she said returning to the room “I’d like to eat.” In all honesty, Dash was starving.


Rainbow Dash and the guard arrived at the top of a long flight of steps. Dash guessed it was probably one of the tall towers she’d seen when she came to Canterlot before. 
“Okay, just through this door miss.” said the guard, motioning to the entrance to the tower’s top.
“Uh, thanks.” Dash replied simply. The guard, seeing his duty satisfied, left back down the stairs. Dash entered the door, expecting to find Princess Celestia and her friends waiting for her. To her surprise, there was only one pony in the room besides her. “Princess Luna?” Dash said with a mixture of shock of curiosity. 
“Hello Rainbow Dash.” Luna replied simply. “We have a lot to talk about, I suggest you sit down.”  The room lacked a chair though, the room was surrounded by bookcases, save for a few windows at regular intervals. In the center was a blanket with a pillow on the floor, and a chest next to Luna. Dash decided on the blanket, and sat down on the floor as the princess looked out the window worriedly. It was a beautiful day, sun shining, birds flying, a normal day in Equestria, but none the less perfect. The happy aroma did not match the air of mortal urgency the moon goddess had around her.
“Um Princess…” Dash began.
“No need to be formal, I’m afraid you can’t be worried about something like that at a time like this.” Luna replied quickly, as if they had little time to discuss her matters and were being watched. 
“Okay…um Luna” Dash corrected, a bit taken back by the worried urgency. “Would you happen to know where my friends are? I saw some royal ponies at their houses like the kind that came to mine, and was wondering if maybe-” 
“Dash…” once again she was cut off by Luna. “You friends are missing, and those were not royal ponies.” With this Dash’s fears were confirmed. Those ponies had not been the ones to take her to the castle, and they had not taken her friends here either.
“Then…who were they?” Dash asked, now quite a bit frightened for the well being of her best friends.
“Before we talk about that, we need to talk about something else, namely your past.” Luna said gravely.
“My past? Like, my life back in Cloudsdale as a filly?”
“Actually, not so much your past.” Luna said, turning to look at Dash head on. “We need to talk about your family’s past”