The Shadow Rises
Inside a deep abyss, under a mountain and only accessible to those who were capable of teleporting and knew the way to get past the phenomenal amount of wards, was one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Cut off from the rest of the world by a terrifying magical barrier that possessed the attribute of decay and drew energy from the world itself, was a place that could be reasonably compared to Tartarus. A veritable hell of monsters that were ever-changing.
Frequently, questions were raised about why places like that needed to exist. Why would you seal away dangerous things instead of destroying them? But that particular place was a good example of one of the reasons: Because the monsters sealed there were literally unable to be killed.
Created by an ancient evil warlock called Menagerie, those were beings that had the very concept of death forcefully stripped away from them. While this might seem like a miraculous feat, those monsters had actually been considered failed products by their creator, because the process had removed their intelligence and made them uncontrollable, along with many other side effects.
Still, their ability to live could not be doubted. Even Knight Aurora Dream, the Devourer of Existence, who had the ability to eat anything in the world, was incapable of permanently destroying them. It fell to one of her fellow Knights, a unicorn named Road Rash, who had the title of Ruler of Void, to seal them away with a barrier that they could not pass simply due to their very nature as existences who only knew life.
He also threw a mountain on top of the prison, just to be sure.
Ever since them, through countless ages, the monsters had been trapped inside that prison, where their existence was a constant struggle. They could not die, and the only thing they understood were the principles of life. They could only eat, grow, change... Their bodies were constantly mutable and they cannibalized each other constantly, briefly joining together as organisms when one ate another one completely, but they always separated again at the end, only to begin the cycle once more.
And at that very moment, every single one of the undying monsters were together in a single organism. A being that should not be able to exist in the world, only kept alive by the impossibility of its parts to die. A creature that did not have a beginning or an end, a monster made of uncountable mismatched parts. And that monster started to climb.
That wasn't anything new. The creatures were always moving around in all directions on their confined space, but what was strange was that the creature kept moving upwards without the least hesitation, without stopping or changing its course.
And soon, the irregularities grew ever more pronounced. Even as the entire mass of the creature recoiled and trembled, as if trying to get as far away as possible from the barrier, the creature itself kept moving upwards with no pause. Eventually, the barrier was so close that parts of the creature started to rip themselves off from the main mass, turning back into separate existences.
Yet still, the monster didn't stop its advance. More and more of it was torn off by the simple measure of trying to get close to something that was so inimical to its very flesh, until eventually, only the core was left, a mass of flesh with four nubs resembling limbs that still persisted on climbing upwards.
As it got closer and closer, the mass started to decay little by little, but this was actually something that explained a lot. The monsters that were sealed in that abyss wouldn't be able to decay, since it basically meant a death that went cell by cell, so the creature that was climbing towards the barrier was an existence that was never supposed to be in that place.
And that existence really wanted to get out.
Even as every part of its flesh was decayed, that monster still forced its dead limbs and body to move upwards relentlessly. And finally... It crossed the barrier.
The creature kept climbing up, and its flesh started to be reborn. Little by little, the vitality returned to it, and when it got out of the abyss, the thing was back to being completely alive.
Finally, it started to morph, the mass of its flesh becoming extremely compressed, until it reached a certain point and actual features started to appear, until slowly it made a remarkable transformation. It turned into...
"Ahhh! I'm finally out." Twilight Sparkle said, working out the kinks on her neck.
After she made a few stretches, to make sure everything was working right, Twilight Sparkle teleported away.
-0-
Celestia sighed as she thought of the current situation. It was not like things were bad. On the contrary, the situation Equestria was going through was actually pretty good.
Now that Twilight had finished her training, there were twelve Knights who were available to deal with any crises (okay, it was more like ten, since the Crusaders could only fight while together, but that was still a high number). The training of eight of the Knights had gone well, and seven of them were focusing on developing their abilities further after having experienced the latest mission. Also, Luna was there and her avatars were available, and Cadance was creating her own avatars, which meant even more power available.
But Celestia could not help but think that this was merely the calm before the storm. And that was not because of paranoia, but because of various worrying factors that had piled up together: There was Sombra's scouting of the abilities of the Knights, together with his strange movements relating to shadow outbreaks. There were the reports of King Thorax about Chrysalis Changelings being spotted with increasing regularity. There was the strange silence of the remaining chaos shards, with no serious incidents having occurred in some time. And now, there was that Starlight Glimmer mage, who had came from nowhere and managed to get very close to defeating the Knights completely.
All those things together made it clear that, although the situation appeared peaceful, there were a lot of possible problems boiling under the surface.
And the worst part was, Princess Celestia couldn't do anything about it that she wasn't already doing. Her eight most trustworthy Knights had gone through heavy training, while she was constantly sending the newest Knights on small missions in order for them to quickly build up experience, the most recent of which was an incident involving artifacts.
Luna's avatars were following up on the changeling reports, while Cadance's were apparently tracking the chaos shards, and her own intelligence network was looking for any information about Starlight, but even her apprentices (who had been captured) didn't have any idea about where she could be. (Also, the magical researchers were looking into counter-measures for her cutie mark removal spell).
Indeed, she was doing everything she could, but Celestia would never stop worrying.
-0-
Inside Fluttershy's cottage, a unicorn and a pegasus were cuddling together.
"Ahhh..." Twilight sighed happily "This is so much better than that nasty cage..."
Fluttershy smiled "I know what you mean. My training was also pretty rough."
"Sorry." Twilight said, since she had been one of the people responsible for the state of that area.
"Don't worry."
"So..." Twilight started "A lot of things must have happened while I was training. Princess Celestia told me to ask you girls about it. I only know that the Crusaders became Knights and they have left on a mission together with Spike."
"Well..." Fluttershy thought "I guess the most important thing was the mission we went through. The same mission the Crusaders finished to become Knights."
And Fluttershy told the tale. She didn't have the same flair as Trixie, but she was a patient storyteller that answered any of Twilight's questions about details with great care, and she also managed to get her emotions across pretty well in the retelling, which significantly enhanced the experience.
There was even a particularly long digression about Rarity's solo mission, to explain about the whole artifact formula thing. But in the end, they came back to the matter of the Crusaders using Dark magic.
"Princess Luna said that it isn't something they should be doing often, but their method should work to allow them to use both Dark and Light magic relatively safely, so they are going through training to master it."
And after the story was over, Twilight's first comment was:
"It's sad that Starlight is an enemy."
"Yeah." Fluttershy agreed.
"It's always sad when strong mages become threats to Equestria." Twilight said, with her eyes closed "Since that means one less possible Knight."
"And she would definitely make a good Knight." Fluttershy thought about it.
-0-
Meanwhile, on an alternate dimension...
A heliotrope colored unicorn mare was fighting against seven powerful enemies. All of them attacked together, and it created a web of magic that covered up the entire sky, before falling towards the unicorn with the finality of a mountain.
"Harmony is the tendency of the world..." She chanted with her eyes closed, before opening them and shouting "Equality Shift!"
A pulse of magic spread around her and expanded to the size of a city. Every single one of the enemy spells were touched by the magic, along with every bit of space not occupied by a living being.
And then the spell activated, and the energy of the spells was "equalized", spreading equally to every single point touched by the spell, completely disabling the magic.
"You'll have to do better than that!" Starlight Glimmer bragged to her enemies, as she began to weave another spell.
-0-
The two thought about that for a moment, before Twilight decided to change the subject:
"You mentioned those two who became Rarity's apprentices... Coco Pommel and Suri Polomare was it? How are things going with that?"
Fluttershy brightened up "Oh, Rarity said that things are going swimmingly!" She nodded "Apparently she has got them to the point where they can create small artifacts easily. And they have received a task from Princess Celestia to create magical swords to allow guards to be able to fight against shadow monsters."
"That should help." Twilight said "Also, you talked about the new abilities of the Crusaders, but what about you girls? What have you been working on?"
Fluttershy smiled "Oh, that's actually pretty fun! I have actually started to use my empathy to affect entire places at the same time!"
"Tell me more."
And Fluttershy did. She talked about her recent experiments with the kind of detail that only a magic nerd like Twilight could be interested in. And Fluttershy also asked a few small things to Twilight, who was still her teacher.
And after all that, the conversation went to the other Knights.
"Rarity said she was finishing her greatest pieces so far, and that was a week ago, but the only thing she told me about them was that they weren't more swords." Fluttershy frowned "Pinkie is trying to fuse her purification magic with her chaos magic and emotion magic, and she said she is having a lot more success with the first part..."
"I'll see if I can help her with it later..." Twilight mumbled.
"As for the others..." Fluttershy continued "Sunset and Trixie only told me that they were going to achieve their dreams..."
"Wow..." Twilight muttered "I can't wait to see that."
"And what are those dreams, anyway?" Fluttershy asked.
Twilight smiled teasingly "You'll have to wait and see."
Fluttershy pouted at her, but Twilight bravely resisted the cuteness.
"Okay..." Fluttershy gave up "Applejack told me she was working on seeing into the future, and Rainbow Dash... I'm really not sure."
"What do you mean?"
"I asked her about it, but she just said she was going to use weather magic to go 'Boom!' and 'Blam' and 'Crackatoom!' and apparently she expected me to understand what she meant." Fluttershy said doubtfully.
"I think only her teacher would be able to understand." Twilight said.
"What about you?" Fluttershy asked "What have you been doing?"
"Ah, I'm working on magic based on action and reaction!" She smiled with confidence, before adopting an expression of doubt "Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it karma? Anyway, it's all about being able to hijack energy from metaphysical deeds and turn it into power for physical purposes, mediated by dual-purpose restrictions." She concluded.
Fluttershy tried, she really did, but she did not have any idea what Twilight could be talking about. So she asked something else:
"Is this why the interior of your body is different now?" she put a hoof on Twilight's stomach "I can feel it shifting constantly, but I don't exactly understand the purpose..."
"Ah, no. That's just the chaotic body." Twilight explained "It makes me harder to injure. I've been trying to achieve it for some time, but it's only recently that I've managed to muster enough determination to forge it."
"I see..." Fluttershy nodded "Then, I guess this is it. That's everything about it."
"Then let's stop talking about work." Twilight said, and reached over to kiss the pegasus.
-0-
Meanwhile, in Sairaon, a small town on the outskirts of Equestria...
"Sarge!" An earth pony guard ran into the office of the highest ranked guard in town, a pegasus called Roll Card.
"What is it?" The pegasus asked, surprised by the panicked tone of voice of his subordinate.
"The lookout reported a problem! A huge problem!"
Roll Card decided against asking for clarification, instead going to see for himself. He flew over to the observation tower and asked the guard in charge, a unicorn mare called Rampant Cross:
"What's going on?"
"See for yourself." She said, weaving a spell to create a telescope of light in front of him.
The pegasus took a look and immediately paled. The entire horizon was a single dark line, even though it was day. That was because of an absolutely massive army of shadow monsters that was marching towards the town.
He almost succumbed to panic, but recovered when Rampant Cross asked:
"What should we do?"
Training taking over, he remembered the first lesson of the guards: The civilians came first.
"Send a message to our superiors warning about this. Then you should come after me, I'm going to need every guard in the town to help with the evacuation."
She nodded and started to compose her message, while he flew off to organize things.
That was the first part of the worst shadow outbreak of the last ten thousand years.
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I am a fan of Starlight Glimmer as well so that's good. I wonder how you are going to handle her redemption.
Road Rash? Oh that poor pony must have been the plot of many many jokes...
Medical definition of Rash: Breaking out (eruption) of the skin. A rash can be caused by an underlying medical condition, hormonal cycles, allergies, or contact with irritating substances. Treatment depends on the underlying cause of the rash. Medically, a rash is referred to as an exanthem.
twilight. as we have yet to see the results of her training.
there must be a lot of powerful knights back then
Holyshit I thought that was Tirek
Did Venus change into Cadance? Or are they just separate ponies
Yeah! Communsim magic!
how are they already knights, this was faster than the main six (excluding twilight)
ah, I don't think seeing into the future is a good idea
I love how most of fluttershy's lines end with a "..."
I'm still pissed off that the CMC are already knights
Yay for communist pony, we need to see more communism spells
8544275
Yeah, tell me about it. I was like, "Wait what? Did I read that right?"
8545233
They are separate ponies. Did you forget the discussion about avatars marrying involving one of Luna's avatars.
Also, this might be my fault, because the way the time passes isn't that clear, but it took longer for the Crusaders to become Knights than it took for the apprentices of the three Knights. Also, they're pretty much only 1/3 of a Knight each.
8545737
I told you that you should have made it clearer in story.
8545961
That was what Princess Celestia's section was for.
I really enjoyed this chapter, but I do have a complaint that the type and results of Twilight's training seems less clear than the other knights. Like okay yeah she had to deal with monsters who couldn't die and were apparently changing a lot, but that doesn't make it seem quite as insane as what some of the others went through. Maybe I'm missing something? o.O
8546098
She'll talk about with the others next chapter.
8546112
Need any ocs? If so, I'm good at making them, as long as I am told what you need to know about the oc. So, can I make an oc for your story?