Terror in Equestria 8: A New Threat

by StormLuna

Catching Up

Author's Note:

This chapter will be done almost entirely in a back and forth dialogue.

After White Magick headed off to the forest to get some food in his stomach, four of the ponies who Twilight had banished to the void along with Celestia's parents headed over to where Twilight was sitting and none of them were particularly happy with her.

The first to say anything was Queen Galaxia. She scowled at Twilight and yelled, "I knew you banished my daughter to the void." She lit her horn up and continued, "I may not know how to banish ponies to the void but I'll make sure you never banish another pony again."

Unlike how she would have in the past, Twilight shied back and asked, "Banished to the void? What in Equestria is the void?"

Galaxia looked like she was going to fire a bolt of energy at Twilight when she was grabbed by Celestia. She said, "Mom, stop! I know she's done bad things but......." Celestia took a closer look at Twilight and noticed that she did not look the same as she did when she banished her, she saw that she looked like she did on her coronation day. She gave Twilight a concerned look and asked, "Princess Twilight, is that you?"

Despite being surrounded by six very angry ponies, she got up on all fours and rushed to her. She embraced her and looked at the angry ponies surrounding them and asked, "Princess Celestia, why are they all mad at me?" She pointed her hoof at Galaxia and Cosmos and continued, "And who are they?"

Cosmos yelled, "Don't you play stupid with us Dark Goddess Twilight......"

Celestia interrupted, "Dad, take a close look at her! She isn't a dark goddess anymore!"

Everypony took a much closer look at Twilight and realized that the cleansing spell had worked. While they were banished to the void while it happened and had no clue as to what happened, her three friends knew that their old friend was back. They rushed to her and hugged her. Rarity was the first to say anything, "Twilight darling, it's so good to have you back!"

Twilight looked very confused and asked, "What do you mean it's so good to have me back? I haven't gone anywhere!"

The way Twilight was acting those around her began to wonder why she was asking such questions. The first one to come up with a suggestion was Celestia, "You guys don't think that she has no memory of the time she was corrupted, do you?"

Twilight looked up at her and asked, "Corrupted, what do you mean?"

Another pony had been listening in on what they had been saying and wanted to find out for himself. Blue Star stepped into the circle of ponies and asked, "Princess Twilight, what is the last thing you remember?"

Twilight replied, "The last thing I remember was arriving back at the library after a long day of meeting with the mayor and for some odd reason, there was another me there."

Blue Star asked, "Is that it?"

Twilight replied, "No, I also remember this me wanting to get into a staring contest and I agreed. Well we stared at one another for a very long time until suddenly everything went black and after that, I remember this white Alicorn telling me to feel the light of being a free pony again."

As they all looked into Twilight's eyes as she said this, they could tell that she was indeed telling the truth, they could tell that she had absolutely no memory of her time of being corrupted. This caused Princess Celestia to shed a few tears of joy, "It is so good to have you back Twilight!"

Twilight was very confused. She asked, "Why does everypony keep on telling me that they are so happy to have me back?"

Celestia replied, "Twilight, we are going to have to sit down together, well all of us because what has happened over the past five thousand years will be a lot for you to take in."

Twilight shrieked, "FIVE THOUSAND YEARS? What in Equestria are you talking about?"

Pinkie looked around and saw that Sugarcube Corner had sustained no damage from the battle and suggested, "How about we go to Sugarcube Corner and let Twilight know what happened?"

Celestia replied, "I think that is a splendid idea!"

Before they headed to Sugarcube Corner Blue Star gave an order to all his soldiers. He pointed his hoof at Chrysalis and Sombra and yelled, "Keep them detained. If they start struggling, cover them in more ooze!"

All his soldiers yelled, "Yes sir!"

Celestia led Twilight and everypony else who had surrounded her towards the sweets shop. Twilight was looking around and noticed one thing, a very troubling thing. Before they got to Sugarcube Corner Twilight asked, "Where is the library? Where is my home?" She then also realized that some of her friends were missing. She continued, "Where is Spike and where are Applejack and Fluttershy?"

Before they answered her they went in and took a seat. Pinkie immediately went and got Twilight her her favorite, donuts with extra sprinkles and some cider. Once they all got sat down Twilight again asked, "Where is the library and where are Spike, Fluttershy and Applejack?" She then remembered another thing, she continued, "And what was that about five thousand years?"

Celestia began, "Twilight, you might want to hold on to your wings because what we are about to tell you is going to be very hard to take in and some of it will not be pleasant."

Twilight gave her a nervous look and asked, "What is it?"

All the ponies around here looked at one another nervously until Celestia again spoke up, "Twilight, this happened not too long after your coronation but you know how you brought up that other you?"

Twilight replied, "Yes, I did. Something didn't seem right because I know I couldn't come back and visit myself for that long."

Celestia said, "Twilight, that was not you. That was Queen Chrysalis and she took the form of you. It is believed that she stared into your eyes for so long that she was able to corrupt you to serve not only her, but King Sombra as well."

Twilight's pupil's shrank. She gasped, "I was corrupted to serve them? Are you saying that I was their puppet for five thousand years?"

Celestia replied, "No, it was not too long after the three of you took over Equestria that you wanted everything as your own so you learned how to banish them to the void and after that, Equestria was yours and soon you wanted more, a lot more."

This shocked Twilight but she was curious as to how they were able to take over Equestria. She asked, "Princess, how were we able to take over Equestria?"

Celestia replied, "Well you three marched on Canterlot with a large changeling army and a large dark unicorn army."

Twilight knew that Celestia would not lie to her but everything so far had become hard for her to take in. She asked, "What the hay? The three of us overthrew you and Luna? What did you two do?"

Celestia replied, "We had to flee to Alicorn Island to be with our parents and Goddess LaurFa."

Twilight looked up at Galaxia and Cosmos and asked, "I mean no offense but I don't know who you are. Are you Celestia and Luna's parents?"

Galaxia replied, "Yes, I am Queen Galaxia and he is King Cosmos of Alicorn Island."

Twilight knew her geography fairly well but Alicorn Island was one place that she was not familiar with. She asked, "Alicorn Island, where is that?"

Galaxia replied, "It is halfway across the Pegasus Ocean between Equestria and the eastern side of the Equine Empire."

Twilight began to look around and given that they had brought up Luna earlier, she couldn't help but wonder where she was. She asked, "Celestia, you brought up how I ran you and Luna out of Equestria. Where is she?"

Celestia and her parents sighed in a bit of frustration as they wanted to keep the timeline of what happened linear. Celestia replied, "Twilight, what happened with her is another thing that will be hard for you to take in but let's just say that she left this world entirely when you and your forces fought in one final battle against multiple ponies you had transformed into Alicorns to take control of not just Equestria, but the entire planet."

When she heard Celestia mention her transforming ponies into Alicorns, she couldn't help but look at her friends and notice that they were Alicorns. She cast her gaze at the three and asked, "Pinkie, Rainbow, Rarity, how did you three become Alicorns? Did you write your own magic?"

Rarity replied, "No darling, you needed us along with Colgate, Lyra Heartstrings and Lemon Hearts to be Alicorns to help you with a global conquest so you transformed us along with Fluttershy and Applejack."

Twilight gasped, "Seriously? I learned how to transform ponies of all races into Alicorns?"

Rainbow interrupted, "Yes Twi, you did. You wrote a ton of magic through almost non-stop studying but despite that, you did suffer some defeats."

Twilight buried her face in her hooves and sighed, "Listen, I know everything you are saying is true but this is so much to take in." She lifted her head up and became frustrated, "Ok, you can tell me about all this other stuff later but where are Spike, Applejack and Fluttershy and what happened to the library?"

Celestia replied, "Well Spike wound up dying after he grew up and aided you in an attack on Ponyville. He wound up hurting Fluttershy so Rarity took a spear and plowed it into Spike's heart."

Twilight glared at Rarity and yelled, "You killed Spike? How could you kill Spike?"

Rarity replied, "Twilight darling, you have to understand that he was no longer the Spike you knew. He had grown huge and was dead set on aiding you in taking Equestria back from Colgate." She began to become agitated and continued, "He burned Ponyville to the ground, he used his enormous tail to strike Fluttershy down and broke her wing. It was either I killed him or he killed both me and Fluttershy!"

Pinkie added, "For you to truly understand what happened, you would have to read a history book that Colgate wrote, one that went into detail about not just that battle, but that entire time period."

Twilight sighed, "Ok but still, where are Fluttershy and Applejack and what happened to the library?"

Celestia replied, "Remember how I said that Luna went to a completely different world? Well during that final battle for Ponyville when it looked like your forces were going to win, Colgate, Fluttershy, Applejack along with the cutie mark crusaders, the rest of the Apple Family, the creator goddesses Brevity Thrash and LaurFa and all their forces teleported off to a completely different planet to allegedly start a whole new world where ponies were just beginning to evolve from horses that resemble Saddle Arabians."

Twilight asked, "Ok, I hope there are books out there that will go into detail about this and speaking of books, WHERE IS MY LIBRARY?"

Princess Celestia could tell that Twilight was going to become just as belligerent as she was when she was corrupted if she didn't find out. She said, "Twilight, it was not long after you used slave labor to build a black tower that you moved all the materials in with you and a shortly after you cleaned the library out, it was hit by lightning and burned to the ground."

Again Twilight had trouble taking in what had been said to her. Her eyes shrank and she gasped, "What? I used slave labor to build some sort of black tower?"

Blue Star, who had been rather quiet interrupted, "I think we should show Twilight where her tower was and with any luck, maybe some of her books survived its collapse."

Everypony got up and headed to where Twilight's tower was. She looked around and noticed that for the most part, Ponyville was as it was with the exception of Sweet Apple Acres being deserted, the library being gone and as they continued on, a pile of rubble. She pointed her hoof forward and asked, "That pile of rubble, what is it?"

Celestia replied, "That was your home and during times when you had been banished our unmade, Colgate called it home as she ruled Equestria during those times."

Twilight gave Celestia a look of confusion and asked, "Unmade? What do you mean by unmade?"

Celestia replied, "Twilight, if any of the books in your underground bunker survived, you'll be able to read about it."

As they reached where her tower used to stand Twilight saw something that she did not expect. She saw a large army that consisted of many, many unicorns, many changelings and many dark Alicorns. She stopped in her tracks and shrieked, "Changelings, Alicorns that look like Sombra and those other unicorns, what are they doing here?"

Blue Star replied, "They came with my father and I to free you and right now they are guarding the two who corrupted you?"

Twilight shrieked, "What? King Sombra and Queen Chrysalis are here? We have to do something!"

Right as she finished this a white Alicorn with a blue mane and tail with a blue pentacle cutie mark landed in front of the group. He had heard Twilight's concerns when he was flying in and said, "Do not worry Princess Twilight, it won't be long until I cleanse them of the evil that has corrupted them, as I cleansed you of the evil that corrupted you."

Twilight gave him a curious look and said, "Wait a minute, you look like that Alicorn I saw not too long ago."

White Magick replied, "I am King White Magick. I am the leader of a closed off realm that my kind discovered not too long before the fall of Ponyland."

Twilight couldn't help but chuckle, "You're kidding, right? Ponyland is nothing more than a myth."

White Magick replied, "Actually no, it isn't. Perhaps some day you can come to my realm and read about those days in my library."

When he mentioned a library Twilight's attitude changed completely. She asked, "Really, you have a library that goes back that far?"

White Magick replied, "Yes, my kind has a library that dates back to the dark days long before Equestria came to be."

Celestia interrupted, "Speaking of libraries, I think we need to see if Twilight's library escaped any damage."

Given that Celestia had lived in the tower for quite some time, she knew where the archives were but the entrance to them had been blocked by debris. Celestia pointed her hoof at it and sighed, "Well shall we clear away the debris?"

Everypony nodded and they began to remove everything that had blocked the entrance and once it was all gone, everypony was shocked to see that no damage had been done to the door nor had any been done to the lock. Twilight looked down and saw a tile with a hoof print on it. She pointed at it and asked, "That hoof print, what is it?"

Celestia replied, "It is a lock you created to make sure that you are the only pony who could get into the archives."

Twilight looked at the lock and then looked down at her hooves. It looked like the print was larger than her hooves but knew that to get in and see if things escaped any damage. She gave Celestia a nervous smile as she went to step down on the lock. Given that she was smaller, her hooves were smaller as well and despite having had all her evil energy taken away, the lock still shocked her and threw her backwards.

"Ow!" shouted Twilight. She got up and looked at the door with a scowl. She asked, "How are we going to get in there?"

Celestia replied, "In the past when it was Colgate who controlled that lock, we had to blow the door off with our magic." She looked at everypony and continued, "Now we're probably going to have to do this together, this door isn't going to budge without a fight."

They all nodded and readied themselves to blow that door off. All their horns began to glow brightly as they fired energy at the door. Luckily for them they were able to easily blow the door off and the first to head down into the archives was Twilight, who was then followed by Celestia and White Magick. Much to their surprise, there had been absolutely no damage done to the books in the main part of the archives. Twilight looked around and smiled, "Well everything looks ok."

As they headed further back, they again ran into another door and saw another special tile on the floor. Celestia saw Twilight looking at it and suggested, "I wouldn't step on that if I were you. We are going to have to blow it off."

Twilight looked around and saw how confined of a space it was and had her concerns about what would happen. She asked, "Princess Celestia, this space is so tight. Using that much magic down here could harm us, especially if we were to get thrown back."

White Magick interrupted, "It is alright Twilight, I want to try something."

Twilight gave him a nervous look as he lit up his horn and grabbed the door in his aura. He began to focus more intently until his eyes began to shine white and he began to see visions of the past. He began to see the dark magic that Twilight put into making the lock and the magic she used on the door so he used the polar opposite of that magic. He fired a powerful bolt of pure white magic at the door and rather than blowing the door off entirely, they all heard the door unlock. White Magick then pushed the door open and headed in, followed by Twilight and Celestia.

Twilight began to look at the wealth of information around here and was shocked that she actually had that many books at her disposal. She asked, "How did I get so many books in my hooves?" She pointed out to the main part of the archives and asked, "How did I get those and how did I get these?"

Celestia replied, "Well a few of them out in the main part are from your library and a lot of them are from the Canterlot library when you raided it and took them all but all of these in here are from the royal library in what was then known as Faustica." She gave Twilight a slight smile and continued, "Even when you were corrupted, you still had an insatiable hunger for knowledge."

Twilight gave her a nervous look and replied, "It looks that way but the way I acquired it was probably horrible."

Celestia sighed, "It was but now that we know everything is ok, we are going to have to make plans on building you a place big enough for not just you, but for all your books."

Twilight asked, "But won't I have to return all these books I stole from other ponies to their rightful owners?"

Celestia began to reply to her but was stopped by White Magick. He nudged her and whispered, "I need a word with you, alone."

Celestia whispered, "Alright, I take it involves all these books?"

White Magick nodded and led Celestia out of the archives, back outside. Once they were out of earshot White Magick began, "Princess Celestia, I know you care about Twilight deeply and want her to have all these books, I think the ones she acquired while she was corrupted need to be returned to their rightful owners."

Celestia asked, "Why White Magick? When Twilight saw all those books I could tell she was happy and I don't want her to be sad."

White Magick sighed, "Celestia, those books may have residual evil energy on them, energy that if she is exposed to for too long, will corrupt her again and I will have to do another cleansing." Celestia began to protest but White Magick continued, "Celestia, I understand the nature of magical energies very well. Just trust me alright, these books need to be returned to where they came from."

Celestia looked off to the west towards where Canterlot used to be and asked, "But Canterlot no longer exists! What are we going to do about those she took from there?"

White Magick replied, "I'm not sure but I do think it would be for the best if her new home only includes the ones that were originally in the library she lived in." He paused for a minute and continued, "Even those that were written by her and Colgate should not be in her new home. We need to try and restore things to how they were immediately before her corruption."

Princess Celestia finally realized that White Magick was right and that they would have to break the bad news to Twilight. They headed back down into the archives where Celestia broke the news to Twilight, "Twilight, about the books that you took during your corruption, those will have to be returned to where they originally came from."

White Magick added, "And those you wrote during your corruption along with those written by Colgate will need to be put in a different library. Celestia and I have our concerns that if you keep those books with you that they may radiate negative energy and potentially corrupt you again."

Twilight replied, "Alright, I understand. I don't want to become evil again." She headed out of the archives and asked, "But where will I live? The library was destroyed."

Her friends along with Celestia's parents and Blue Star had joined them back up on the ground. Rarity offered, "Twilight, I know there won't be much space but you could live with me until Celestia can get you a place of your own built."

Twilight replied, "Thank you Rarity, thank you so much."

Something then hit Celestia, she remembered that even though she wasn't evil, that Colgate had the ability to create housing in nothing flat. She asked, "Galaxia, Cosmos, do you know if there is any way that we could contact Brevity on that other world and see if she could bring Colgate with her to build Twilight a new home?"

Twilight asked, "Colgate? I thought she was a dentist. I wouldn't think she could build things."

Celestia replied, "Twilight, Colgate became even more obsessed with studying than you did and eventually she developed the ability to restore and create houses."

Given that Twilight had forgot all the magic she knew during her corruption, this really shocked her but again knew that Celestia would not lie to her. She sighed, "It is too bad you can't contact her wherever she went."

Soon they heard something unpleasant, the yelling of Sombra and Chrysalis, which immediately drew the attention of White Magick. He shook his head and said, "Well I think all of you should catch up some more while I take care of a couple things."

Celestia asked, "So are you going to banish them somewhere?"

White Magick replied, "No, I plan on cleansing them as well. I have a feeling that if we can remove the evil from them and they use their magical abilities for good, they may be able to aid us in the event any other evil creatures were to rise."

Twilight and all her friends nodded as White Magick and Blue Star headed over towards their belligerent captives. Blue Star glanced over at his father and asked, "Father, these two are going to be far more difficult. Do you think you'll be able to even handle one of them, much less both of them today?"

White Magick replied, "Yes son, I do. Don't worry, I've got them covered."