Chapter 20: Ghosts of the Past
“So, what’s the wall say now?” I asked, seeing how the lettering changed along with the pony’s depicted form.
“Right, let me see…” Twilight’s eyes casually moved about the wall, taking in what information was to be had from the words that were magically carved into the stone before us. “Interesting… It explains here that Sombra used a form of catalyst to bring about Princess Luna’s possession by the Nightmare.”
My ear twitched towards a soft rattling sound not too far away, but my curiosity of some of Luna’s back story kept my attention held firm.
Must be some mice.
“So, it was Sombra who turned Luna? Why?” I asked for clarification.
“It says it was an attempt to gain a powerful ally to help him take over the kingdom.”
Pinkie gasped through a mouthful of popcorn that she had summoned from her tail. “Did he succeed?” she asked in a manner similar to a child being told a ghost story around a campfire.
“Well… Yes, but not as he intended.”
“What? Did she betray him or something?” Rainbow Dash inquired out of curiosity.
“No, the process was too slow. The Princesses found out about Sombra’s takeover of the Crystal Empire before Princess Luna could completely turn. It says here they were warned by the previous ruler of the Crystal Empire; Princess…” Twilight inhaled sharply as she read the name to herself.
“What? Who did Sombra take the Crystal Empire from?” asked Applejack.
“I..it was Cadence.” she said in a low tone that was almost a whisper, but was loud enough for all of us to hear.
“Yeah?” Shining Armor asked, unbelievingly. “You didn’t know that?”
“And you did?” she countered. To which he simply nodded with a half-smile on his lips. “How? She was only a teenager when she foalsat for me. There’s no way she could have been alive back then to even be the old ruler of the Crystal Empire.”
“She used an age spell to look younger. For some reason she got it into her head that all foalsitters had to be teenagers, and she really wanted to look after you.”
Huh. I guess he's into older women then.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she inquired.
He shrugged. “I honestly thought you knew. You’re the most well read pony I know of, Twily. I figured you would have already read about her rule during your studies, or maybe Cady would have told you about it, like she did me.”
Twilight crossed her hooves over her chest and huffed in annoyance. “Well, she didn’t. You’d think she would have trusted me enough with that kind of information when we came to save the Crystal Empire.”
“We were a bit busy at the time, Twily.” Her brother explained. “I’m sure that she would have told you if she thought it mattered enough.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Enough talking.” Dash interrupted, impatient with how slowly the story was moving along. “What happened with the Princesses?”
Sighing, Twilight continued with the tale written on the wall. “It says that Cadence was able to escape Sombra’s capture and made it to Equestria where Princess Celestia and Luna took her in.
“Discovering he was a threat to their kingdom, they retaliated before the effects of The Nightmare could fully take hold of Luna. They flew to the Crystal Empire themselves to subdue him with the Elements of Harmony. They only meant to purify him of his evil ways, but something else happened.”
“What? What happened?” I asked completely engrossed in the story, and doing an impressive job of ignoring the rattling sound that seemed to be a little closer now.
“Princess Luna was corrupted with the Nightmare at the time, and her thoughts were not completely her own. So, when they used the Elements in their fight, it ended up destroying Sombra’s physical body, and sealing his soul under the ice below the city. The princesses believed it was the will of The Elements. Neither of them suspected that a spirit resided in Princess Luna until it was too late, and we all know how that ended.”
“How did it end?” the bubbly pink mare asked with genuine interest as she bounced in place.
Twilight stopped to look at Pinkie with an expression that said, ‘How do you not know this?’ She quickly shook the thought from her head, and answered her friend’s question without any resistance. “She was taken over completely and turned into Nightmare Moon where she tried to create night everlasting. She was banished to the Moon for a thousand years by Princess Celestia. When she returned, we defeated her with the Elements of Harmony, and saved Princess Luna from The Nightmare.”
Twilight inhaled and let out a sigh from her long narration. “Does that answer all of your questions?” she asked her illogical friend.
“Nope! I knew all that stuff already." Pinkie giggled. "I just wanted to know why the Princess would create a temple in the middle of the city that secretly worshipped King Sombra, and not once tell anypony about it sense her return.”
The librarian blinked a couple of times while her mind processed what Pinkie had told her. Twilight turned to analyze the wall of text once more. “Huh. I don’t know. It doesn’t say why she built this place. It just says at the end here that the answers you seek will reveal themselves on the way you’ve already been.” She said, pointing to a hastily scrawled text that didn’t seem to belong with the rest of the wall.
“That’s very interesting and all, but does anypony else hear that dreadful sound coming from behind us?” a nervous looking Rarity asked.
As if her words were the final nail in our coffin, we all gulped in unison, and slowly turned our heads to find what was making the noise that I was doing my hardest to believe was only rats fighting each other for food. Sadly, my wishes were left unfulfilled.
Cornering us against the wall stood nine pony skeletons that had been previously positioned around the pedestal. None of them moved except for the bones that made up their bodies. Each bone would clatter against one another like they were constantly resisting the effects of gravity on their individual parts.
“Nopony make any sudden moves.” Shining Armor advised as he took a more defensive stance between the undead ponies and the girls.
Sadly, I didn’t hear the good captain’s orders, as I was too busy having a small panic attack about the undead existing in Equestria.
Okay! So, Equestria has Zombies. Not good! Definitely not good! Keep calm. Okay, how do we deal with them? Well, if they’re anything like the zombies back on Earth, then all I have to do is remove their heads. Easy!
Focusing my energy into my horn, I summoned all of my strength onto each and every skeleton skull, and pulled with all my might. The skulls were removed with little to no effort on my part, and because I used so much force, the skulls flew across the room and bounced harmlessly against the stone wall.
The pony skeletons remained motionless. None of them making any aggressive movements towards us, nor falling into a pile of bones as I had hoped.
Everyone just looked at me in shock, and horror.
“What?” I asked. “I took care of it.” I motioned to the skulls that continued to roll about on the floor. We watched as they began to roll in a specific direction, making their way towards their respective bodies. Crawling up their limbs until their skulls rested in their proper place once more.
“Crap.” I muttered, witnessing how my actions did absolutely nothing.
Further contrary to Shining Armor’s orders, Pinkie Pie decided that this was the best time to scream the most ear piercing scream that she could produce from her lungs, and to dash back and forth in front of the rest of us in a panic. “AHHHHHH! Undead ponies! They’re going to get us! They want to eat our brains! Everypony for themselves!” she shouted, shacking grabbing my shoulders and shacking me to drive her point home.
I once again expected the skeletons to attack us then and there. However, they stood firm, not moving from their position for any reason Pinkie Pie gave them.
Pinkie’s screeching shortly died off as she realized that she wasn’t getting a rise out of them. “Awww, you’re no fun.” she pouted, crossing her hooves to express her dissatisfaction of being ignored.
“They’re waiting for something.” Twilight observed, eyeing one a little closer.
“Keep back, Twily!” Shining Armor warned, pulling her away from the dead pony by her tail. “You can’t trust anything that involves Sombra. There’s no telling what they’ll do if you touch them.” he said spitting his sibling’s tail out of his mouth.
“Well we can’t just sit here.” I stated.
“What would you do then? Keep tearing their heads off until they attack!?” he questioned irritably, stepping aggressively in front of me.
“No. That clearly didn’t work, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to do anything but stand there either, so we should just keep looking for what we came here for while we can.” I answered.
“You mean, ignore them? That is the dumbest thing we could possibly do right now. We need to leave and rethink…”
“Leave, where?” I interrupted the captain, pointing at the group of skeletons. “They have us surrounded. If you haven’t noticed, there’s nowhere left to go.”
“Stop it! Both of y’all are actin’ like foals. What we need ta do is calm down, and think things through.” Applejack reasoned, putting herself between the two of us to keep the peace.
Twilight nodded her approval. “That’s right. We won’t gain anything by bickering amongst ourselves.”
“But, he stated it!” Both of us whined at the same time like the little children Applejack accused us of being.
“Well, Ah’m ending it.” Applejack stated. “We’ll handle this.” With that, the orange mare pulled out her Element of Harmony and put it around her neck, followed by Pinkie, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity. The five mares stood in a V shape looking confident until they realized their last friend wasn’t acting along with them.
Twilight stood off to the side, her ears pulled back against her head, and pawing against the ground with uncertainty.
“What’s wrong sugercube? C’mon, let’s blast these varmints, find that crystal, and get outta this creepy place.”
“I… I can’t.” she moaned.
Her friends cocked their heads in confusion. “Sure you can.” Dash announced, flying over the others to be the forefront of attention. “Just put that crown thingy on your head and…”
“I lost it.” Twilight said in almost a whisper, though all of us were able to hear it clear as day.
“You lost it!?!?” all of the girls, and Shining Armor Shouted.
Dash continued after the others stopped. “How could you lose something so, so…”
“It wasn’t her fault.” I interrupted. “It was mine.”
“Yours? Why would you…”
“If he didn’t do what he did I probably would have died.” Twilight interrupted her friend once more to defend me.
“Would everypony stop interrupting me!” Rainbow Dash shouted in irritation.
“Either way, it doesn’t really matter. What’s done is done, and we can’t change it. Besides, it doesn’t look like the skeletons are going to move any time soon.” I observed, completely ignoring Rainbow Dash’s outburst.
“If we can’t fight them with the Elements, than we need to leave. You’ve put my sister in enough danger it would seem.” Shining Armor stated, approaching me in an intimidating manner.
“That’s enough! Both of you.” Twilight scolded. “I know you don’t like it, Shining, but Honor is right. They’re not moving, so we should keep looking for what we came for while we can. I may have been in danger, but it wasn’t Honor’s fault… mostly. He did everything he could to keep me safe, and then some.” She smiled a small smile that included a blush as she glanced my way clearly remembering some of the events in the caves.
The others looked at her curiously, but I knew what she must have been thinking about. Twilight shook her head to rid herself of her thoughts, and turned to me.
“However, Honor, Shining is right as well. We shouldn’t stay here for long, so we need to hurry as quickly as we’re able. We do have a time limit, remember?”
I nodded my head in understanding, smiling slightly to the mare I cared for. “Yeah, sorry Twi.”
She’s right. We don’t have time to bicker. We need to find this crystal, and fast, but there has to be a way to deal with these things. Trixie got away after all.
“Hey, Trixie. You got away from these things, right? Is there anything to worry about?” I asked.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie was not foolish enough to enter this condemned place at night. These abominations never moved when I was last here.” she answered unsteadily. Fear creeping into her voice as she cowered behind Fluttershy, who was huddled behind Rainbow Dash at this point.
Okay, they only move at night. Great! So, we just have to wait twelve hours for the Sun to come up. Enough time to scour the area. There has to be a clue somewhere. Maybe the story that Twilight read from the wall has one in it… Wait…
“That catalyst must be the gem we’re looking for!” Pinkie exclaimed in sudden understanding.
Of course, beaten to the punch by Pinkie Pie.
“Oohh, is there punch?” asked the pink mare forever interested in food.
Get out of my head!!! I shouted internally, covering my head with my hooves.
“Does it say anything about where it ended up after it was used?” Rainbow Dash inquired, ignoring Pinkie’s antics.
Twilight shook her head. “No, as I said before, it just say’s that the answers you seek will be the way you’ve already been.”
“Back where? Outside!?” Dash Exclaimed. “There’s nothing out there but ruins. Not to mention we have to deal with these dead ponies first.”
“Wh..What about th..the mirrors?” Fluttershy stuttered. “Could they be the answer?”
“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Fluttershy you’re a genius.” Twilight exclaimed, giving her shy friend a big hug in gratitude.
“Oh! Um… Thank you?” the yellow pegasus answered, unsure how to take the complement.
“But how are we going to get past the ‘guards’?” Trixie asked using air quotes around the word guards.
“Easy.” answered Twilight. “We’ll teleport around them.” Charging her horn with magical energies in preparation for the spell, she took her time in preparing so many ponies for transit.
The skeletons, apparently, did not take too kindly to that, and began to move closer towards us. Shining Armor realized the danger and lit his own horn to create a shield around us to give his sister time to finish her spell. “They’re making their move! Hurry, Twily.” he ordered.
“Give me a second.” She responded, closing her eyes in order to focus on what she was doing.
To my astonishment, and fear, the undead ponies passed right through Shining Armor’s shield like it didn’t even exist. “We don’t have a second, Twi.” I warned as I moved in front of the lavender mare to try to protect her from their assault.
Getting within arm’s length, the leader of the pack reached out with a bony hoof to touch my snout. But, just before it could make contact, we disappeared, only to reappear on the other side of the room.
Finding that we had moved, the skeletons’ heads, and only their heads, quickly swiveled around a full one hundred and eighty degrees to glare at us. They turned their bodies around, never once looking away from their targets, and began to advance once more.
Twilight sat behind me gasping for breath. “That took... more out of me… then I thought it would.” she panted. “I don’t think… I can cast any more… spells for a while.”
“Well, we’re boned.” Pinkie stated with all seriousness and/or ignorance of her horrible pun.
“Not funny, Pinkie!” I chastised.
Okay, it’s not safe here anymore. I hate to admit it, but Shining Armor is right. We need to go… for Twilight’s sake.
“Alright, let’s get out of here!” I announced.
“Finally!” Trixie exclaimed, bolting towards the closed doors that we had entered from.
I don’t remember anypony closing those.
The blue unicorn reared up on her hind legs, and with her hooves, threw them open. She stood there for an awkward moment with her cape fluttering behind her.
“Hay! Who stole the outside?” Pinkie asked, pointing her hoof at the open doorway.
Instead of the ruined city that we had expected to be on the other side of the entrance. There was only a staircase descending downward into the darkness of a tunnel. A torch flickered to life as soon as Trixie’s front hooves returned to the ground. A second later, another appeared. And another, each one illuminating more stairs further down the passageway until they curved around a corner.
“It must have changed… when we activated the crystal.” Twilight reasoned between breaths.
“Doesn’t matter. We need to move!” I shouted, scooping Twilight up onto my back as I made my way for the open door.
Twilight shifted her weight on top of me, but paused suddenly and gasped. “Honor! Look!” she directed with astonishment, her hoof pointing towards one of the mirrors we were passing. Keeping one of my eyes on the bones advancing upon us, I was just able to spot what Twilight wanted me to see. And what I saw caused me to stop my withdrawal outright.
The mirror was angled in such a way that one of the skeletons reflections was visible to us. However, the reflection wasn’t of some long dead pony. What we saw was a healthy brown stallion with a yellow mane, and he was wrapped in white robes which covered his cutie mark from view. His body moved with the bones steady advance, but his face was frozen in what could only be abject terror. His eyes never once moved away from some unknown object that seemed to forever float above his head, luring him towards his destination.
Further observation showed that the other skeletons were all in similar predicaments, each wearing the same robes and the same look of horror in their eyes.
Acting on a hunch, I had angled another mirror next to the first to reflect the same stallion’s reflection. But this time, his face was twisted into a ridiculous smile that normally would only have a place on Pinkie’s face.
“Are they even still alive?” I asked the mare on my back.
“I don’t know.” She answered. “But, the question we should be asking is, ‘Why are they all stallions?’”
Shining Armor finished ushering everypony else through the open door, before noticing that his sister and I were straggling behind. “What are you doing?” he asked. “We need to go. Now!”
“But, the ponies are…” I started, but Shining Armor would have none of it.
“They’re dead!” He shouted, creating a wall with his magic between the dead ponies and us. “You can’t help them now. No pony can.” With that the barrier began to move, pulling us towards the open doorway.
I tried to fight his incessant shoving, but his shield was too strong. In the end, we had no choice but to follow him down the stairs. Shining Armor closed the door behind us, and barricaded it with one of his spells.
“Come on.” He ordered. “That might not hold them for long.”
As if to emphasize his point, the undead ponies on the other side began banging on the door. Each attempt sounded stronger than the last, and the ancient wood of the door would creek and groan from the effort.
“Come on Honor. We should catch up with the others.” Twilight conceded. She sounded sad, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of losing her element, her brother’s actions, or for not being able to help the dead ponies on the other side of the door. Either way, I conceded to her wishes, and followed the stairs down.
Shining Armor snorted in irritation, watching us for a moment, before making his way down behind us.
We continued on for a bit before reaching an open archway at the bottom of the staircase that lead into what appeared to be a magical laboratory. There were beakers filled with unknown liquids long forgotten among various other pieces of equipment. Books were scattered about in a haphazard manner, full of notes and the like, for whatever experiments that were once conducted here. A thick layer of dust lay about, left undisturbed for millennia in the small room.
The others were looking about for anything that resembled a crystal of any kind. Once Twilight’s eyes rested on the room her friends were scattered about in, her eyes grew wide with excitement. All of her exhaustion was forgotten, as she literally jumped off my back to dart from bookcase to bookcase reading the spines of the books to determine what they were about.
“Fascinating! There are early notes on the Amniomorphic Spell’s development here.” Twilight observed on one bookshelf. “And over here are notes on Alicorn Magic and origin speculation. And here are a few books on beard style and care tips.” She gasped suddenly in understanding. “Do you know where we are?” the purple mare asked all of us at once.
Seeing our heads shake in the negative, she answered her own question. “This is the lost study of Starswirl the Bearded!”
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Oh COME ON !!!! Ive been waiting for chapters on this story for a while and you put in hiatus!? HUuuuuuuurrrrrrrrr
WOOHOO UPDATE BUCK YEAH!!
I really appreciate that you put up another chapter since this is definitely one of my most favourite fics!
Great chapter! Awesome reveal there. I too feel it was Sombra who's dark magic had corrupted Luna, especially given the recent introduction of the Mare of Darkness in Harmony Castle (castle of the Pony Sisters) as being a piece of NMM that split off during the Banishment. That has his hoofprints all over it.
Here's hoping events will be kind to you and let you work on this again soon, as it finally has for me and my ponytales.
(p.s. ...We continued on for a bit before reaching an open archway at the bottom of the staircase that lead into what appeared to be a magical laboratory. There were beakers filled with unknown liquids long forgotten among various other pieces of equipment. Books were scattered about in a half hazard manner...
-haphazard)
3662570
Better than cancelled, in my opinion. Sorry for the unreasonable wait on an update. I hope the next one won't take anywhere near as long as this one did.
3662686
I'm glad you like the story. Thanks.
3664717
Thanks for the feedback, and well wishes. Also for notifying me of the mistake. Fixed it.
Welcome back and happy holiday's. It's great to have this story back. Something i've been wondering about. Will you be expanding more on those two dragon's who might be Spike's parent's?
3669344
I do plan to bring them back later in the story.
are there any plans to continue this story?
PLZ continue the story
Finish your fics