Broken Legacy

by PonyStories2077

Prologue: The Darkest Night

Watching the last rays of Celestia’s sun shrink behind the mountains of the Unicorn Range, Spike the Dragon turned from the window and walked down the stairs to the public floor of the 'Golden Oak Library' in the small town of Ponyville.

Spike went to getting started on his very important early night duties as Princess Twilight Sparkle’s number one assistant. The royal sisters had called the new princess to the royal city of Canterlot earlier that day, Spike has been running the library ever since.

It was just under a week before the upcoming Equestria Games, hosted by the Crystal Empire. Being the largest sports tournament in the country, the games has gotten everypony extremely excited. They were training hard to win the most gold medals for their hometowns. During training was the first time in months where ponies were not being skittish or distrusting of each other.

This distrust was not because of the elements being swapped around again, like the time two years ago when Twilight became a princess. No, this was because of the recent disappearances of various ponies in the northern cities of Equestria.

Over the last few months, there have been rumors of ponies randomly disappearing from large northern cities. When the press asked the princesses about this, Princess Celestia, along with Princess Luna, publicly announced in Canterlot that they were aware of the disappearances and already have been sending out search parties.

Around a week ago, Spike heard new rumors about the city of Vanhoover being a ghost town. Some say there is an unnamed group of ponies who are to blame. Numerous Equestrian national flags with a red “X” spray-painted over the lower half and a red unicorn head painted on the upper half, hung all over the city like some kind of calling card. That alone was enough to cause the spread of fear and distrust.

The princesses denied the existence of any group. Nevertheless, Twilight always seemed to be very disturbed about the topic. Whenever Spike asked her about the rumors, she urged him to never speak about it again.

Now, thanks to the games coming up, ponies trusted each other again in hopes that the games will bring everypony together for the chance to win gold medals for their cities and towns.

Spike dusted off bookshelves and rearranged some out-of-place books as he cleaned off various furniture around the library. Dusting and putting away the books left on tables and chairs by forgetful ponies.

Feeling like today had been a great day for the little dragon; Spike felt a strong sense a pride in his handy work.

“Not a single book out of place, Twilight will be very happy when she gets back.” He vaunted with a smirk.

Spike smiled to himself and walked into the kitchen. He flipped on a small switch on the wall next to the kitchen door, and a magic lamp in the ceiling sprung to life, bathing the room in a warm light. He smiled as he remembered the day when Twilight figured out a way to link up glow-crystals to switches using special spells, creating a lamp that didn’t need to be refilled or relit constantly. It revolutionized Equestria, making candles obsolete to non-unicorns for lighting up a dark area. The library already had several installed, as did many other houses in Ponyville.

Smiling at the pleasant memory, Spike picked up the broom sitting next to the doorway, he began to sweep away the day’s dirt from the kitchen floor.

He was busy cleaning the dishes when he heard the front door being slammed open from somepony bursting through it at a full gallop. Thinking that it must be Rainbow Dash returning her copies of Daring Doo at the last second, again. Spike thought nothing of it and went back to work. Then he heard Twilight talking to herself, sounding distressed about something.

He peaked out of the kitchen and saw nopony in the main room. Glancing upwards towards the stairs, he spotted purple from Twilight’s tail just as she rushed out of sight down the hallway to the upper floor.

“That’s funny, Twilight always announces when she gets home.” Spike thought to himself.

Spike walked out of the kitchen to the bottom of the staircase and called up to Twilight.

“Hey Twilight, is everything alright?”

He paused to listen for a response, but it never came.

He was about to call again when he suddenly remembered the letter he received from Princess Celestia shortly before Twilight returned. It was marked ‘Urgent! For Princess Twilight’s eyes only!’

Hopeful that an important letter from the princess would help brighten her mood. Spike rushed back into the kitchen and eagerly retrieved the letter from its resting spot on the kitchen table. When a sudden thud followed by a sharp crash came from upstairs.

The baby dragon jumped and dropped the letter in surprise; he raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He stopped himself halfway up, staring at the hallway leading into the study. An unusual light that changed to various colors of the rainbow lit up the hallway. Inside the room, Spike could hear Twilight rushing from one end of the room to the other.

Quietly, Spike got down low to hide and crept up the stairs to see Twilight galloping all over the room while levitating several pieces of parchment around herself. She looked like she hasn’t slept in over a week. With a severely disheveled mane and tail, large bags under her bloodshot eyes, and her lavender coat was filthy with dirt and stains.

The light that had been illuminating the room appeared to be coming from a gleaming sphere, floating in the center of the room. This light was not a comforting light like candlelight or sunlight, but was somehow very disturbing to him, in a way he could not explain. Almost as if, the light was seeping into his very being and haunting him.

Twilight teleported in front of the sphere with a single piece of parchment in her magical grip as Spike watched on.

“T…Twilight…?” Spike whispered in fear.

Twilight read the script on the parchment aloud and the sphere suddenly flashed so bright, he forced himself to look away with bright colorful spots in his vision.

When his vision cleared, Spike turned back to see that the light and parchment had both disappeared. Twilight was now sitting down in the middle of the room. She stared blankly at the wall while mumbling gibberish to herself, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Spike immediately rushed over to her side and placed his claw on her shoulder.

“Twilight? Are you okyiiiie!” Spike yelped as the mare suddenly turned around and wrapped him in a tight hug. Wrapping her hooves around him and sobbing over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry! I am so very sorry! She… she told me not to! But Luna said I had to, I-” She paused and began weeping even harder.

“Celestia will hate me, maybe even banish me when she... when she finds out.” She choked between sobs.

“Whoa! Whoa! Twilight, slow down!” Spike yelled to silence her and pushed against her to look into her eyes, “Why would she do that? What happened?”

Before she could answer him, he noticed that the room was shaking. Twilight’s horn suddenly fired up and her magic engulfed her body and yanked her from his arms into the air.

She levitated a few feet off the floor while clenching her teeth and her eyes shut in pain. Purple colored magical aura flickering around her body. Then it started swirling around slowly in a clockwise spiral outwards from her horn, appearing to drain from Twilight into thin air.

Spike suddenly felt the mother of all headaches explode through his head. Making him collapse to his knees and clutch his head in agony. To put it into simple words, it felt like somepony was trying to smash a watermelon with an oversized hammer. And his head was the unfortunate melon.

Fighting through the immense pain, he noticed that the walls and objects in the room were fading into duller, less vivid colors.

Spike felt an unexplainable gust of wind blow around him. Despite the windows of the library, being all closed. The “wind” blew out all the magic lamps and candles in the library. Aside from the glow coming from Twilight’s magic, darkness shrouded them.

Then Twilight’s aura suddenly disappeared with a bright flash of purple light at the tip of her horn, and the alicorn fell like a stone to the floor. Spike’s headache suddenly became much less intense as he gawked in horror at Twilight’s motionless form.

Forgetting his own pain, Spike rushed up to Twilight’s side and cradled her head in his arms.

“Twilight! Twilight! Are you ok?! Please answer me!” the dragon cried out desperately.

Twilight made no sounds or movement in response to Spike's pleas, he bit his lip, and tears quickly filled his eyes as he started thinking the worst.

Then Twilight started to stir a bit, weakly opening her eyes as she glanced at Spike. Tears started welling up from her partially opened eyes and she took a shallow breath. He let out a shaky sigh of relief and hugged her tightly.

“Spike, Please… forgive me.” She whispered weakly into his ear.

“W… What? Forgive you for-?”

Before Spike could finish his sentence, a ground-shaking booming noise, followed by several blood curdling shrieks outside the library rudely interrupted him.

Spike gently sat Twilight’s head back down, where she let out a small groan of pain. Then rolled onto her belly and clutched her head. He stumbled over to the nearby window and wedged it open. The unfolding events outside will be something he could never forget.

Outside, Spike watched in horror as all Tartarus broke out in Ponyville. The unicorns were rising into the air by their magic in the same fashion as Twilight was, only moments ago. While earth ponies and pegasi collapsed to the ground screaming in agony, clutching their heads.

Spike quickly figured out what made the booming noise after witnessing some unicorns having their horns violently exploding, instead of simply having their magic disappearing like the rest. They fell limply to the ground as a dark liquid pooled around their hornless heads. Those nearby where hit with debris and received blunt force related injuries.

A runaway carriage raced down a street near the library. Somepony had run into it and knocked its brakes lose. It careened down the slanted street, barreling through a group of ponies then finally taking out a shop at the end of the street.

Several late night flying pegasi fell out of the sky, clutching their heads. Some crashed into houses, leaving large holes in the walls and roofs. Other pegasi slammed into the ground, then laid motionless with dark pools forming around their bodies.

A gust of wind similar to the one before sharply blew around the library. It smothered out all the light sources in town, plunging Ponyville into an eerie moonlit darkness. The land, buildings, and everything in-between had their colors fade in an outwards wave like motion away from the library.

The lights of Canterlot went out on the horizon just as another explosion shot through the late night air, leaving only the outline of the large castle against the dark mountain.

Flying carriages ranging from nighttime taxis to mail carts also fell from the sky, dragging their pegasi pilots with them as they crashed into houses and the ground.

The distant explosions from the falling carriages and unicorns kept cutting through the night, as more ponies screamed and ran around in blind panic.

Horrified tremendously and slightly shaking, Spike turned away from the window and glanced at Twilight. She was now sitting on the floor with her head hung as low as she could. Simply staring at the floor with her eyes closed, refusing to look at him. Her body was shaking with silent sobs, tears dripping onto the floor.

“Twilight? Wha… What’s going on?” He uneasily asked her with a shaky voice, dreading on what her answer would be.

Comments

[FanSSS36]

This was actually an interesting read to me. I do hope you will continue, no matter what anyone says, or how many views you get. This looks like an interesting story so far, don't ruin it. Have a lovely day. 4/5 for the first chapter.

[Leonzilla]

5672629 I agree with everything that has been said here.

And would like to add

This story has the hints of being the beginning of a long epic journey, now many authors feel compelled to do one of this as their first stories, but I feel like I should tell you that that's counterprudent for two reasons, one because it is recommended to get used to writing before you commit yourself to long project with the capacity of being overwhelming, and two because getting some followers before hand is recommended so that your big story has good start.

To top that up this is an adventure story featuring an OC for main character and gore (although light so far) this kind of stories tend to have an even harder time drawing readers, not because they are bad, but simply because they are not popular.

I found this story to be very good, yet I wouldn't be surprised if even after a while it doesn't get the attention it deserves for the reasons mentioned.

Keep up the good work,

~Leonzilla