//------------------------------// // 1. Prologue, Part One: Tartarus-Bound // Story: Tartarus Forged // by SvenFoxx //------------------------------// “Good, Twilight,” Celestia complimented, watching as Twilight maintained a mystical light purple flame over a circle. “Tell me what you’re doing to maintain the spell.” She instructed. Small droplets of sweat ran down Twilight's face and body from the effort she was exerting on the flame. “I’m running my magic through a variety of filters to make my magic neutral. By removing my signature from it, I am capable of using it to maintain Magic Fire, a spell which creates a flame that will not go out unless the source of magic fueling it is either exhausted, cut off, or incompatible." Twilight Sparkle had been the personal student of Princess Celestia for five years now. Her larger-than-average reserves of magic had required the Princess' direct assistance to learn to control, but she was slowly and steadily making progress. Her powers had first awakened when she very nearly failed her entrance exam to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Despite all of her efforts, she had not been able to muster the power needed to hatch the dragon egg set before her. She had been about to tearfully admit failure, when a mysterious rainbow-colored explosion in the sky had startled her. That on its own would have either caused her attempted spell to simply backfire or not work at all, but the explosion was magical in nature, and its magic interacted with her magic, altering the regulation centers in her magical core. Typically, a foal’s body could only handle a limited amount of magic before it started to hurt them, so their magical core restrained the amount of magic it could produce. As the foal grew up and their body became stronger, the restraints would loosen until they were no longer necessary. In Twilight's case though, the magical explosion removed the restraints entirely, causing her body to produce far more magic than it was safely able to handle. Thankfully, Twilight had managed to react on instinct and started shunting the magic outside of her body. However, she was unable to give it direction in her rush to vent the magic, flooding the immediate area with raw mana. Her magic twisted and distorted the local space, leading to completely random effects; her parents became potted plants, her examiners flailed helplessly in midair, and the egg she was supposed to hatch had indeed hatched... and then proceeded to explosively grow upwards, breaking the ceiling in the process. Fortunately, Princess Celestia had been nearby and managed to help Twilight vent her magic. When it was over, Celestia undid the damage of Twilight's magical surge and gave Twilight the offer to study under her directly in the hopes that she could regain control of her magic. Today was Twilight’s most recent aptitude exam, a test devised by Celestia to examine both the size of her reserves, which still grew alongside her body, and how well she could control them. Celestia nodded at Twilight, noting that she had studied thoroughly as usual. “And what about the fail-safes?” She prodded. Twilight blinked. “Fail-safes? Oh no…” She muttered, her eyes widening with the realization that she had forgotten arguably the most important step. Her eyes widened further upon feeling a familiar building sensation within her chest and at the base of her horn. Celestia’s eyes also widened, and her horn ignited with golden magic as she rapidly prepared a counter-spell. She wasn’t fast enough. A shock-wave rippled outwards as Twilight’s magic hit critical and she was forced to expel it. The filters protecting the Magic Fire were shredded by the surge of power, and the flame itself flared and became a raging inferno, shifting from light purple to a malevolent crimson. Celestia was thrown backwards by the expelled magic and managed to catch herself before she hit a wall. She got up and threw up a shield as a second shock-wave ripped from Twilight’s body. She winced when her student screamed. ‘This is far more powerful than all of her other surges!’ She realized. She didn’t have time to question why this surge was so powerful though, she had to save her student. She immediately got to work trying to funnel all of the magic into her own core, and from there to the sun through her connection with it. It was the safest method she had to keep the magic from building so high that it irradiated everything it touched. Slowly, the levels of magic began to die down in the room. Even so, Twilight was still floating in the air from the force of her magic as she struggled to control it. Celestia, too focused on funneling the magic into the sun, didn’t notice the glow building in Twilight’s eyes. If she had, she may have been able to at least strengthen her shield. --- Canterlot was rocked when one of the towers connected to the castle suddenly erupted in a massive conflagration of crimson fire and lavender magic, easily destroying the tower and parts of the castle connected to it. Half an hour later, as emergency personnel worked to dig at the rubble in safety suits that protected them from the magic irradiation, they found the unconscious form of Princess Celestia, bruised and bearing a multitude of cuts and gashes that bled freely, but alive. They found nopony else. --- He frowned as he examined the crater. There were a lot of demons down there, greedily absorbing the magic radiating from whatever had caused the magical explosion that brought him here. With nothing more than a wave of his hand, he destroyed a vast majority of them. Finally realizing he was there, the rest had the sense to scatter. He jumped down into the crater, and found himself examining a small form. A familiar form. “A pony? Here? Curious.” He leaned forward to get a better look at the lavender-furred form. He frowned at the damage her body bore. She was cut in various spots, likely from the claws of the demons that had been feeding from her magic, and her horn was nothing more than a shattered mess. Without that, she could not safely use her magic. Normally, he wouldn’t care about what happened to others here, but the power he could feel in this mare… it sparked ideas. So, with a wave of his hand, he healed a majority of her wounds. Not all though. The scars from those wounds would serve to remind her of this day. After all, if she was going to be useful to him, she needed to know that he, Tirek, was the only one in charge here.