Nightmare War.
Celestia was looking over Everfree Castle, the capital of Equestria. The city was designed shortly after Discords sealing, so it had a chasm surrounding it to be more defensible from the abominations that his Chaos brought to the world. A large stone bridge gave easy access to the city, built less than a few decades ago to allow steady trade.
The city itself was remarkable, the stonework being done by true masters of their craft, only the designs of the Canterlot Project could surpass them in grandeur. The forest is kind and ancient, seeming to tolerate their presence, and somewhat welcome it as well.
Now though, the city was evacuated, while Celestia hoped she can reason with her sister, it’s not worth risking the civilian’s lives in the process.
Her gaze moved from the city to the treeline far in the distance, her eyes roaming over the hoard her sister had brought. Zombies, some new kind of pony that slinked through the shadows as if born there, and glowing red eyes farther back glared at her, and she knew they could see her clearly, even at this distance. In the distance trees moved, falling and being changed by magic
The ponies around her hadn't noticed them yet, she opened her mouth to sound the alarm when a crashing wave of emotion slammed into her. The force of the emotion nearly caused her to lose her balance.
Icy tendrils began to form in her heart, hatred as deep and vast as the darkness between the stars washed over her.
It took her several moments to regain her composure, long enough that the watchponies had already noticed the army leaving the treeline. They sounded the alert, a clear note ringing through the night.
The sound of a mustering army slowly spread, the castle walls echoing with the clatter of weapons being grabbed and armor being strapped, the telltale rattle of spears as they were handed to new and old recruits alike.
The soft clop of hooves on stone alerted her to someponies’ presence. Without looking she spoke.
“Alert the Canterlot garrison, we’ll need them if this becomes a siege. And even if it doesn’t, they outnumber us eighty to one by my estimate.”
A few barked orders behind her and the clop of hooves moved closer. She looked upon her Capitan and sighed, after a moment her gaze returned to the hoard.
Her captain knew where he was needed, even if it was a silent shoulder to grant her strength.
Soon enough Celestia spotted a dark figure flying above the forest in the distance, her sister had arrived. They locked eyes from hundreds of feet away. Celestia searched with all her heart to find that spark of light that always existed, even in her sister's deepest darkness.
The light she saw brought to life in the night sky so long ago.
A sneer was her reply, a warning shot from the moon above slamming into the hastily erected shield Celestia put up.
The force of the impact against her red barrier shook the castle to its foundation, the trees in the distance swaying from the pressure wave.
For her sister to call upon such power in a populated city showed the depths of her disdain.
“Capitan Blueblood, this will be unlike anything you have fought before. Keep casualties to a minimum, any fallen soldiers will rise up and fight against us. Cut off the head of any casualties you can, the true terror of necromancy is that the necromancers army always grows, while ours will not.”
A stiff nod and the pony left, the sound of his hooves on stone getting quieter and quieter.
Honestly, he shouldn’t even be here, he retired with honor a few weeks ago. But he wasn’t the kind of pony to stand about while others died.
At least his wife managed to evacuate.
A chill settled over Celestia’s form, off in the distance Luna flew, illuminated by her wings against the moon at her back.
Her sister was coming. And if the ‘greeting’ she just got was any indication, this visit will be far from pleasant.
Celestia flew out to meet her sister. The closer she got the deeper and darker the feeling of Luna’s magic became. When they were within speaking distance Celestia stopped.
“Please, don’t do this. If there’s a problem, we can work on it together. We stopped discord once, we can stop his plague together as well.”
Luna’s face twisted into a snarl. “It’s always something else, you get so preoccupied with something that you don’t notice those beneath you. Tell me, did you even realize I’ve not been in Night Court in twenty years? You’ve not even been in my room in over a century. Meanwhile basking in all the love and praise of these lower beings.” She cast a glance at the castle, her dispassionate gaze showed her utter contempt. “Such flawed creatures, so easily frightened.” She grit her teeth, a pair of fangs poked over her lip. “I changed my appearance, I contributed to the arts, I founded many museums, yet they still seek the warmth of your Light!”
Celestia opened her mouth at her true name but was cut off when she continued. “I’m done waiting, it’s been nearly a hundred generations since Discord was sealed, any terrors he unleashed in his night are long gone, yet ponies still don’t approach me.”
Luna was glaring at the battlements, her draconic eyes following the ponies preparing much like one would watch an anthill.
Darkness begins to swirl around her horn, the moon above seeming to pulse with power.
“Sister! We are not to use our power in populated areas! you know what happens. The world we built will be scarred forever!”
At that, she seemed to pause.
“Getting cold feet?”
Celestia blinked, Discord was leaning against Luna, his appearance was so sudden the spell she was channeling released early. Pure white light slammed into the earth next to the Castle, the force of the blast causing cracks to develop on the towers, sending ponies scrambling away.
“Oh dear, Seems I startled you a bit. Anything I can do to make up for it? I got a coupon for couples therapy somewhere…no..that’s a 2 for 1 at the soup kitchen...” he started patting himself down as if searching many invisible pockets, sending random bits of everything scattered about. Celestia’s eye caught sight of a book, very similar to her own grimoire, though it looked unnerving to say the least, her brief glimpse seeing ‘Disharmony’ on the cover and a T at the bottom, just like every grimoire she’d seen so far.
Celestia recovered from her shock first and glared at the draconequus. “We sealed you, you should be nothing more than a statue.”
Discord waved a claw in dismissal. “I got a friend in low places...or maybe sideways places….Time’s weird like that.”
“Time? Is she helping you? To what end? She loves order far too much to put up with your antics.” Luna sneered
“Well, yes and no. It’s a long and harrowing tale, of a much younger Embodiment of Chaos. Ah, to be a few billion Cycles younger.” He sighed.
“I was making chaos, She was studying a colony of ants, writing it all down on one of her many scrolls. He looked wistfully off in the distance for a moment.“I’ve got a bad hip now, It’s really driving me batty.” A muffled. “Speak for yourself, old man.” Came from Discords’ left hip. He rolled his eyes. “Ignore him, Sisterly disputes always get him down.”
A muffled “Why can’t they just get along? It’s so sad…” came from the forlorn hip. With a look of disdain, he popped off the offending appendage, leg included, and shoved it into a small can, the appendage compressing much smaller than it should be as it was stuffed inside. “Oh can it, I’ve had enough of your complaining.” He turns to a wardrobe behind him and starts going through various legs to replace the missing one. He gets to one that ended in a rather risque high heel and blushed a bit. “Oh my, where did that one come from?” a catcall coming from nowhere, in particular, filled the silence
Luna simply glared at him, her patience quickly running out. “I’m doing what Time desires, surely you won’t interfere. Hell, I’m sure I could cause enough chaos for you to be on my side for once. What do you say, want to cause some destruction again?”
Had she really fallen so far? To ask Him of all beings for assistance. “Sister, that’s against the rule-”
“Buck your rules! These ponies, these creatures know nothing, when I’m done with you and your paltry forces, I’m going to give them one chance, one. If they don’t accept me, then I’ll raze everything to the ground and start over, next time they won’t have you to turn to for guidance, only me.”
Before Celestia can reply she’s blasted away from her sister, with so much hatred flowing from her she hadn’t even realized that her sister was charging a blast till she was hit with it. She flew clear across the battlefield and slammed into one of the towers. With a crack and rumble, it began to fall, threatening to flatten her soldiers flat.
Even in pain, she could see that the paltry shields her unicorns were putting up wouldn’t be enough, as she fell she channeled magic to her own horn, covering the ponies below in a proper shield.
Being crushed by a couple of tons of rubble was inconvenient, but the blast from her sister hurt. She wasn’t holding back. Of course, her sister knew most mundane attacks against her avatar would merely inconvenience her.
Even an avatar can feel pain, otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to exist fully in the world, not knowing when something was out of place.
Not that it wasn’t exceedingly difficult to actually hurt an avatar.
Ponies were pressing against her shield, trying to get to her, and getting slightly scorched for their troubles.
Does she really seem weak enough to let something this small hurt her? Lifting the rubble from herself she deposits it in an empty corner of the courtyard. At the shocked expressions on her soldiers’ faces, she looked down, only to discover a hole where her chest should be.
That would explain the pain, she was nearly cut in two by her sister. For a surprise attack, it was quite effective.
She waited for it to regenerate. After a few moments though, she realized nothing was happening. looking up she sighs as she realized that her sister’s Moon was actively blocking her light from reaching her.
She gave the order for her soldiers to charge as she teleported herself closer to her star, basking in the rays, her body quickly began healing itself, though her sister’s moon was still blocking her light from reaching the battlefield, making it impossible to perceive what is happening, even with her other senses.
Her sister knew she can see all that her light touches if she chose to. It also stopped her from drawing upon her power inside the glowing orb when she was on Equestria’s surface. Not that she would call upon her full power regardless, The ramifications being quite damaging if she drew too much.
It was a masterful move regardless, She never really noticed Luna was quite a tactician.
Celestia stayed a bit longer in order to charge up some extra magic, having a sinking feeling she will need it, cutting it as close as she could before she started affecting things near her avatar.
Some things were just too flammable. For example, ponies. or buildings.
When she teleported back she came across a gruesome scene. The battle lines were in total disarray.
Standard battle tactics were to use shields to defend from artillery as they charged, then to separate out opponents with shields to make numbers more manageable. This strategy required one unicorn to be defended at all costs as they could do nothing but channel the shield spell.
It spoke volumes of how much her soldiers trusted one another, to casually leave their lives in each other's hooves so completely.
The shields, however, were being popped by Luna with obvious glee, if not outright incinerating the ponies inside with raw unfocused magic. They were exposed and overrun by the teeming hoard clawing and biting at the shields.
There was no sign of Discord, which was more concerning than not.
In the middle, the distinctive purple shield of her captain's wife was being targeted by Luna next.
She’s supposed to have evacuated with her newborn foal!
With a single flap of her wings, Celestia broke the sound barrier, showing up right in time to block her sister’s attack with a hastily erected shield. Any relief was short-lived when she heard a cry from below.
“CHANGELINGS!” The battle lines utterly collapse as ponies turn on each other, some disguised changelings, some panicked Soldiers.
The trust of her soldiers was being used against them, for when trust is broken it’s hard to repair.
They were beginning to rout, the low morale of fighting such hideous creatures already putting them on edge.
She lit her horn and sent a spell upward, lighting up the sky with a winged symbol. When her soldiers saw the retreat sign, they all began moving toward the bridge, fighting their way back when necessary.
When they were all safely inside the city’s walls the charges blew, sending the bridge and a host of unfortunate souls plummeting into the chasm below, dying broken on the rocks beneath.
Soldiers detonated extra charges to block the main gate leading to the city, the beautiful stonework simply being turned into rubble to slow down the approaching hoard. For her part Celestia raised a Shield over the entire city, flying above the tallest spire, her brow furrowed in concentration.
From here she could clearly see the army her sister has gathered was truly massive, a battle of this scale hadn’t happened in Equestria since the Griffon Wars.
A spike in hatred alerted Celestia moments before the impact, her gaze moving upward and locked onto her sister. The moon pulsed once with magic and the rest was darkness, illuminated only with shards of her broken shield as it faded away.
~~~~~
“Is there truly no other way?” Life was looking upon a large globe, scenes of the civil war playing out before her, Celestia’s avatar looked fine, but the city was nearly in ruins from the blast.
Death was watching a different orb, this one completely black except for a white unicorn with a green two-toned mane floating inside. Her eyes were red and hateful and she was screaming obscenities at her confinement, most directed toward chaos, some to death, some to all of life itself.
They were in a room, far more ancient than even Equestria. Fashioned from the first matter to exist in the universe the meeting place of the Gods was magnificent to behold, much due to Darkness’ artistic nature. The octagon was split into eight wedges, each with fanciful designs of the Deity who was represented in it. Life’s was green and vibrant, etched with the purest jade and marble, Death’s was made from slate, carved to look like the bones of ponies struggling to escape. And each section in turn showed the gods and their domains, all except the last section, which was chaotic and unrefined, jagged in one spot, even in others. Not even seeming to make sense to those who looked upon it. Chaos’s wedge was twice as wide as any other section, the rest being split in two with the gods and their other halves.
Light, Darkness.
Love, Hate.
Life, Death
Chaos
And finally, a perfectly symmetrical circle rested in the middle, where Time resides, bridging all the gods together.
Right outside of Time’s circle was a series of Scrying Globes, one for each deity to use during discussions, or to just monitor the state of their world.
Death sighed. “In order to stop what’s coming, we all have to chip in, I’ve even begun talking to Hate.”
“Truly? I doubt he was receptive to visitors, even if he’s not being called for quite yet.” Life looked upon the death and destruction being done by Darkness and her army, especially looking at the undead rising and killing others to make yet more undead, her disdain was evident, and she was absently letting some of her essence spill into the room.
“You mind?”
With a start Life realized what she was doing, toning down her aura she looked at death to see him quite peeved, half his body already crumbling to dust before her. “Sorry, You know my feelings on undead, and to see them killing so many...I’m having a hard time finding places to reincarnate, The birth rates are still quite low, even this far after Chaos’s reign.
“My my, that sounded like a jab. You truly wound me.”
Chaos was lying on the floor, a spear through his chest, clutching it in mock agony. “These barbs hurt…”
Rolling her eyes Life shuts off her globe. “Are you aware of what you’re doing? You risk everything, not only what we hope to achieve, but what will ever be achieved. Any one of us could die, but not you.” She walked up to chaos, with a twitch of her hoof she ripped the spear out of the draconequus and glared at him, her aura absently began filling the area again, plants seeming to come from nowhere, vines covering multiple sections of the octagon.
With a sigh Death jumped back, landing in Hatred’s section of the octagon.
“There’s no talking to her when she’s like this.” His body was beginning to reform already, but it was still inconvenient.
For his part, Chaos looked unusually serious. He waved a claw at the room in general. “Each of you has your opposite, the one you spend eternity with, Mine hasn’t awoken yet, and trust me, this puts Hatred’s long wait to shame.
Before anything get’s worse a feeling of compassion washed over everyone, their squabbles slowly ebbing away, Life toned down her aura, and took a couple of deep breaths. “Thank’s Love.”
When she was calmer she turned back to Chaos.
He floated over to the center, An aspect of Time appearing before him, surrounded by a shield of chaos magic she looked from one to the other and sighed. “I’m guessing the undead are putting her on edge?”
At the sound of Time’s voice Life stiffened, she slowly turned toward her and uttered an embarrassed cough, the vegetation slowly wilting and dying until no sign of it remained.
“Your majesty, surely you agree Chaos’ plan is foolhardy, there’s still no change in the far future, he is going to die. And when he does, everything goes with him, even time.”
Time Beta tilted her head to the side. “Seriously? Am I really that far gone?” She looked down, pulling a tome out of dimensional storage. “I was hoping to avoid using this, but…” She looks at the cover of the book. Hatred and the magic of Vengence and Abhorrence.
Chaos puts a claw on her shoulder, his expression somber and genuine.
“I’ve waited long enough, don’t you think? I can’t go another Cycle without my other half. You’ve seen the face of Harmony.” Time simply looks sadly at the cover of the book, her hoof following the bottom, where a simple T denotes the author.
“Another life, another Time, a flip of a coin, a twist of fate. Opposites collide and create infinity.”
She looked at Chaos as she finished the thought. “And nothingness.”
He understood.
Everything is riding on this. Even Time itself.
Either infinity or nothingness.
A flip of a coin.
~~~~~
Laughter greeted her ears once again. “You try so hard Sister. You’re cut off from your magic, guarding the Elements and these foalish ponies.” With a sneer, she fired a bolt at the select few remaining guards huddling behind Celestia.
Without even thinking Celestia’s wing flicked outward to absorb the blow, the resulting wound being added to the countless cuts and bruises that covered her form. With her sister cutting off her Light, her regeneration wasn’t working, and this avatar was beginning to fail
“Please, Sister, we can work through this, haven’t you shed enough blood?” Celestia’s eyes shifted toward the ominous red-eyed ponies behind Luna, fangs flashing in the moonlight.
The tower was rocked by an explosion, sending both alicorns seeking to regain their balance and composure.
“What is it now.” Luna hissed to the beings behind her. From the back someone moved up, bowing to her, and whispered something.
Alicorns have very acute hearing, Celestia was able to hear him mutter: “Reinforcements have arrived, a magic surge destroyed much of the army outside.”
“Hear that sister? Someone in your guard flared and took out a lot of my forces, but they won’t get here in time.”
Darkness began swirling around Luna’s horn, the moon pulsing with power as she drew upon her magic again.
“Time to end this. I’ve changed my mind about giving your ponies a chance. Look at them, so determined, so afraid. They’ll never accept me.”
Her horn was glowing more and more, the very shadows themselves being absorbed to fuel the spell.
“What was that you said? Scarring this world forever? Worlds can be rebuilt. It will be hard without you, but not impossible.”
Celestia didn’t have enough magic to block a spell of this magnitude, her body was going to be scattered from this but she would reform eventually.
Then a spike of cold hit Celestia in her heart. She gasped and looked at her sister, a knowing smile on her face.
She was still charging her spell, but the moon above had attacked her, shifting her focus she noticed a spear of pure magic cutting through her sun, right through the core.
Luna wasn’t simply destroying her avatar, she was attacking her main body too.
She truly meant to kill her.
In pain she looked behind her, the ponies that were once so stalwart were cowering in true fear.
This was why their true abilities must never be known, these little ponies weren’t ready. With a wince the pain in her chest grows harsher, icy tendrils moving through her body. Though they couldn’t see it, Celestia’s sun was dying. Her gaze shifted back to her sister and the utter glee on her face.
No, that wasn’t right.
This wasn’t her sister.
Her sister wanted to be accepted. She was shy, and a loner sometimes, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy long discussions that go into the early mornings.
Her sister found joy in the most mundane things, a good book or simply admiring a painting for hours.
Her sister loved art, loved creating, she even created the night sky, a painting to rival any artist past or future.
She did it out of love.
The sadistic grin on Luna’s face grew, and the pain spread wider making breathing more and more difficult, above the flickering light from behind the moon was noticed by the ponies, concern on their faces.
This isn’t her sister, not anymore. One more glance behind her showed her ponies looking to her to save them, centermost was her Captain, his wife clutched next to him.
His wife that was supposed to evacuate with the newborn foal. Behind her, the elements of harmony shone.
Shedding a tear Celestia channeled her little remaining magic into the elements, with a glow they began to circle around her.
“Relying on trinkets now? Those only work on threats to harmony, if you use them forcefully they will reject you.”
Celestia’s expression hardened, and a silent prayer to Harmony ran through her mind.
“I know.”
The light grows brighter, her body began to absently float. For the first time, her opponent looked concerned.
“Those can’t kill, at most they can seal me away, I will return.”
“I know.” This wasn’t her sister, but it could be again. She had become what she said she would be.
A Nightmare.
It was time for the world to wake up. Celestia took all her love, her pain, her desperation, and even her sadness. All with a silent plea as she channeled her remaining magic into the artifacts.
Give my sister back to me.
And with that, they fired. Nighmare's voice cried out “No!” her own spell meeting Celestia's in the middle. Nightmare's magic was far more powerful than should be allowed on this world.
She could feel the clashing magic as it warped the world around them, the surrounding forest crying out in silent pain.
Still, she pressed on.
I just want my sister back.
But it was not meant to be. Her spell overtook Nightmare’s, sending her flying toward the sky.
The moon above shook from the impact, the magic piercing her sun faltering and fading away.
She took her first real breath of several moments, her body slowly repairing itself, her pink mane growing and changing to a rainbow color. Above them, her sister’s moon changed, a series of craters forming the angry glare of an alicorn staring down balefully on the surface.
She sank to the ground, tears slowly staining her face as she realized that the elements had rejected her wish.
They had sealed the Nightmare away instead of purging her of dark thoughts. Reaching for the artifacts to channel them again her grip faltered, the elements slipping from her grasp and slamming into the ground. She looked down and saw that the elements had been rendered to stone, inert.
“No! This is not what I wanted! Please!” Again and again, she tried to activate them.
It was with a shock she realized that the element of magic wasn’t even here anymore.
Please, just give her back. I’m sorry Lulu, I’m so sorry.
She didn’t even notice the reinforcements arriving to drive back Nightmares' army.
For a full year she didn't move from that spot, her thoughts circling around her last confrontation with Nightmare Moon in an infinite loop, her constant pleas for harmony fell upon deaf ears.
Harmony had rejected her.
~~~~~~
Nightmare raged at the world, trying over and over again to kill her sister’s main body.
She was so close!
“That was quite entertaining. For a temper tantrum, I’d give it about an eight”
Chaos’ voice reached her from above, he was walking around her surface. Using her rage as fuel to augment her concentration she manages to summon a small avatar on the surface.
Even as she turns to look at him chains of Harmony wrap themselves around her hooves, keeping her from simply flying to Equestria.
“Ah, there you are my dear. I believe we had a deal…”
“You said you’d help! I got no assistance from you at all, you simply watched as I got banished!” She tried to break her arcane bonds only to get a lance of pain as punishment.
“My dear, I said I’d help you, not when I would help you.”
With a shock, Nightmare hissed at him. “You knew this would happen!”
“Of course I did, as it’s happened countless times before, but this time I have a weapon.” He pulled a hat from nowhere Chaos waves a magic wand, pulling a book from the depths. With a grin, he drops it onto the moon. “Tada!”
Recognizing a Grimoire Nightmare moved closer, something about this one seemed off, as if it wasn’t really here.
Disharmony and the magic of Strife and Conflict.
“Disharmony? Doesn’t that…”
“Go against the very fabric of the universe? It does indeed. Our little ‘neutral’ friend has been quite naughty. Tell me, did any of your spat with your sister seem preordained? Like you were meant to lose? Well, the jig is up, you are destined to lose, but not if I have anything to say about it.”
Chaos flips the first page open, the glyphs on the surface moving in a chaotic mishmash of thought, and emotion, you’d have to be quite insane to understand it fully.
Luckily chaos was, and it was a thing of beauty, utterly perfect in its portrayal of disharmony.
“It’s said that it can take a lifetime to learn all that is in a grimoire. This one will take many. I’d say...roughly a thousand years or so. There’s an art to staying sane enough to know what you want to do, but insane enough to do it.”
Nightmare was simply looking at the tome.
Destined to lose? Nightmare thinks back on her fight, the elements were a little quick to grant her sister her wish. The fact that the fight ended up in the chamber of harmony also seemed rather coincidental.
She flicks her eyes to him. He said he had help from time...
She tested the strength of her bonds and found them unbreakable with her current strength, she’d have to draw upon the power of her stars. Her gaze turned upward, she called upon her innate magic and began moving parts of her night sky. With a frown, she found that she could only move them a little bit. At the current rate, they would be in position...
She does a little calculation.
A thousand years.
A slow grin spread across her face, it seems this millennium will go by quite quickly.
Who needs sanity anyway?
Seeing that he’s no longer being paid any mind Chaos flips the book to a random page.
“Disharmony, don’t expect the page order to make sense.” With that and a wink, he was gone.
Far below a very similar, but much different conversation was taking place.
Stupid stupid stupid, if we’d had the praetorians the reinforcements wouldn’t have been an issue, now my meal ticket is sealed away and I’m missing the love that was supposed to make up for all this breeding.
No nightmare ruler, no more ‘donations’ of fresh ponies. Her forces were decimated, her infiltrator population was incredibly low, and this close after a civil war pure love will be very, very difficult to obtain.
Wars always created more hate than love, quick flaming passion when they return from the battlefield followed by sadness at what was witnessed.
Pacing back and forth in her hive it was quite a while before she even realized she had a guest, a purple alicorn with an odd barrier circling around her.
She nearly jumped out of her chitin. “Gah!” Dropping to a fighting stance by instinct she glared at her guest.
In the brief moment it took her guest to raise a single eyebrow she realized she’d be utterly destroyed if this alicorn wanted.
Changelings are emotivores, and as such have an empathic sense that surrounds them at all times, sensing the emotions of those nearby.
And the feeling she was getting from this alicorn was...wrong.
It was as if she was there, but not at the same time. Something was there, but…It’s as if there was an invisible barrier. It may look like she’s there, but she’s not.
A perfect void in the shape of an alicorn.
It also made it impossible to tell what the alicorn was feeling.
Growing more curious she sent a drone to latch onto the being from behind, the command happening over the hivemind and thus impossible to predict.
The result was as sudden as it was gruesome. the changeling was ripped apart at the smallest level.
The only saving grace was that the shredding was so perfect, that there was literally nothing left.
“What…”
With a sigh, the alicorn speaks up. “I don’t actually exist in this plane, your...drone just met an event horizon that separates me from this world, I have to be careful not to touch anything directly or I not only break it down but scatter it across time and space. I have to sync my local time in order to interact without destroying. She raises a hoof. “And right now only my hooves are synced, from past experience I know this is the best way to avoid a fight, you always were an ‘attack first’ kind of changeling Chrysalis.”
She looked kinda wistful for a moment. “It was a shock, to say the least, the first time Cha-” she coughed. “Discord touched me, completely ruined the experiment I was working on at the time.”
“Please tell me there is a point to this visit.” The queen rolled her eyes. More gods, great.
Her initial fear had receded, and with it the aggravation of her situation resurfaced.
“You alicorns are starting to annoy me, The moon’s not even been lowered in days.”
The alicorn brushed that away, not even seeming to give it much thought. “She’ll recover eventually, though I don’t recommend going near her, the pain of her loss may affect you.”
Chrysalis starts at that, the memory of the drone that got too close to that castle causing a shiver down her carapace. Even chrysalis was affected by that much sadness and shock.
She simply nodded. “Noted.”
“To answer your question though, I came to give you this.” She pulls a book from...somewhere and holds it out. Hatred and the magic of Vengence and Abhorrence.
If the alicorn felt wrong, this book felt downright disturbing.
“It’s...a book. We don’t keep records in such...archaic methods.”
“This is one of my artifacts.” the alicorn said with a smile, tapping a part at the bottom with a hoof.
A simple T where the author should be.
An artifact... It doesn’t look like much. But artifacts are supposed to have a portion of the power of their creators.
Her gaze moved between the book and the alicorn and back again. “What is your name?”
Alicorns are named after what they represent, perhaps she can get a clue as to what sort of magic this might contain.
“I’m Time. or at least a version of her. Think of me as a...drone that is going against the hive.”
A traitor! Before chrysalis’ hackles rose a serious stare from the alicorn promptly stifled any action, the memory of what happened to her drone flashed through her mind.
And that was her doing nothing.
“Before you get too afraid, I’m going against the flow of time, you see...your planned invasion will fail.”
Plan? What plan? She hadn’t even gotten far enough to begin planning something like that.
“This Grimoire contains a form of magic you might find quite useful, though it will take you quite a while to master.”
The alicorn opens the book and just the first page’s Glyph matrix made chrysalis’ head spin.
I never was really good at magic, arcane script especially.
“Trust me when I say this: Love isn’t the only source of power for you, and in time you will learn this. Hatred may be poison to you for now, but as with all things, you can change that.”
And with that, she simply floats the book out to Chrysalis.
She hesitated but figuring she’s in no position to argue she accepts it, the book floating in her green magic.
Then the alicorn vanished, she simply...stopped existing. Teleports usually have some kind of signature or at least a little flash of light.
She was there one moment and gone the next, the transition was so fast that Chrysalis’ mind couldn’t even process what had happened before it was done.
Reeling from such a casual display of her domain. Time, if she wanted me dead, I wouldn’t even have enough time to realize I might be in danger.
She thought Nightmare was strong, but in a fight, she’d be putting her bets on Time.
Thoughts of displeasing this goddess shook her to her core, but...maybe she was on her side, at least for now.
With a grin, she looked down at the book. The goddess of time just gave her a trump card. maybe things weren’t so bad after all.
Now if only she knew what Time meant by ‘invasion’.
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Who’s the villain?
10306751
good question.
To me it always felt wrong to call harmony the opposite of chaos. To me at least, harmony is balance and/or equilibrium. The opposite of chaos, I find, would be order. And harmony is the balance of the two, creating a reality that is predictable enough for life, but random enough for excitement.
10306868
for various reasons, this is the best comment I think I've ever gotten. It's made me think about things.
this is by far the deepest comment I've gotten. It's weird.
9666649
It was Oracle of Seasons/Ages. How many chapters long will this story be?
10306951
honestly? as many as it takes.
the story itself should 'end' around season 3 when twilight ascends.
how I'm going to do things leading up to that is up in the air still.
do I do a play by play? doing every episode and how it's changed?
Or do I do cliffnotes, where I only do major moments?
I don't know yet. play by play would be more content...but cliff notes would be better content, since you only get the major events.
10306868
Order would be a direct opposite to chaos. And with a balance of the two you create harmony. Really nice worded comment btw.
10306897
Thank you for the kind words. I was just voicing my thoughts. If they are somehow useful, that is just a bonus!
Great chapter. I'm really looking forward towards the next one.
10309783
Well, it was just a guess.
And yes, i do use autocomplete as i type on the phone.
BUT.
About Twilight stopping her.
Oh, she was trying. It clear she was shocked. BUT it was exactly that moment (what a coincidence!) That Discord struck and she got completely distracted by pain and damage to the timeline.
Which decidedly looks like a plot driving coincidence to me.
Your say they don't work without permission?
Why then Discord can use it? He clearly has no such permission. He even tried to give it to mortal, who supposedly, can't use it. And didn't you said that grimuars is just a book with a lot of notes about the magic, with protective enchantments?
How would it "not work"?
And, yes, she wanted to give away those books, but Luna was about to became like Celestia, very "angry" at her. It would be stupid to power up someone who wants to hurt you. I can somewhat understand giving one to Celestia to pacify her a bit. Plus making her stronger will help to fight discord.
But that is definitely not the was to give one to Luna. And how would she continue teaching this idiot then? Without the book?
10309802
This is rather spoilery I think, enough so that I'm going to tag it, but these should answer most of your questions. Nothing major, but I try not to explain things too much in my writing, I hate it when people are told how things work explicitly. it feels like pandering or looking down on the reader's ability to figure things out.
I don't spoil the story or anything, but if you wanted to figure things out yourself, just try to get the subtext and put together seemingly unrelated observations by many ponies.
Artifacts aren't very well explained right now, artifacts are created by gods, think The Necronomicon, Deaths' Scythe, and Celestia's petryal/regalia and Nightmares Armor.
They are generally made out of the magic of the God who created them.
This is why Celestia was confused about how a book was an Artifact, she didn't consider knowledge could be a weapon on par with the other artifacts.
The Grimoires are 'powered' by a portion of Time's magic. They are enchanted so that only those she gives permission can open/read them.
Time is aware how damaging her Grimoires can be, which is why they are so heavily enchanted/protected.
And also why they are being used against her. Think of it like forging the one sword that can hurt you, then you're surprised when someone takes it and uses it against you.
When they are on the shelf in Time's tower, they are designed so that they cannot be removed except by Time herself. IN chapter one when she had to call upon all of her magic she had to momentarily stop powering the books, during this moment Chaos simply took one, and then removed any enchantments upon the book before they could reactivate. which made it so that Time didn't even realize one was gone till Chaos showed it to her.
About her being stopped by Chaos's perfect timing.
I hadn't actually considered that. in my mind, Luna was always going to end up with the Ice grimoire, because it is the opposite of Celestia's fire. If clover didn't give it to her, Time would have eventually.
Also, Clover the clever has fully mastered the Ice grimoire, she no longer needed it when she handed it to Luna.
About her being afraid, as it stands, Time is so blatantly overpowered, she can kill any one of the other gods.
And she in fact has before. Shes killed every god except Chaos at least once. I made a point to say only magic can affect her, and specifically magic that is timeless, that can bridge the event horizon separating her from the world. (as mentioned by Chrysalis when her senses couldn't reach)
And even then, she can choose to ignore that, as noted when Celestia attacked her, and she simply phased through it by moving farther outside of time.
Final answer about how she would continue teaching, Time and Clover were training for 50 solid years. (the reasons mortals can't use grimoires is it takes decades to master, sometimes centuries, and usually they die before then.)
As stated above, Clover no longer requires the grimoire, she's already mastered it by training with Time. And there's more magic that can be taught, there's an entire tower full of grimoires, true Clover can't use Fire because of her being attuned to ice now, but other forms of magic are still open.
About why: I'm sure you want to know why Clover is still considered Time's student, to put it simply, she needs somepony else to do things for her, she's been affected by whatever Chaos did, and her ability to do things is severely limited.
Also, the other options are to Seal clover away for eternity, kill her, or go back in time and do it again, spawning another 'Cycle'.
But that would admit defeat, and Chaos will just do everything again.
I have a habit of not explaining things in the story, but somethings should be, I"m trying to work on how much or how little I should give peeps.
10309892
Well, you have it all so thought out, if only you could put it into the story without withholding things, but not saying them explicitly too.
I personally think that the book is good when author has no need to explain anything. Even when questions arise, they should be expected to characters and not the author.
I did see that it would be logical for Luna to have the opposite book from Celestia, btw.
You said a few times though, that a lifetime is not enough to understand the whole book for a mortal. Celestia taken 6 month for the first page, the most simple spell, and she is goddess. Fifty years is still too little.
But whatever.
The act of giving away something important, something that has been stolen before (without knowing about protection on it) just like that, despite not actually owning the thing, but mostly after being prohibited from sharing it with anyone, is what got me triggered in the first place. Well, that and ridiculously easy corruption of pony princess with such a pathetic lie. She really acted like a fanatic, that made twilight feel creeped out, yet betrayed then just like that? They are creators of the world basically second parents. I find it hardly believable.
Oops. I wrote to much again. You know, i don't actually need you to explain it to me anymore, i get it. But if you still want to discuss your story on other things, better write me pm then. Would be more spoiler proof.