Heart of Light

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Fifteen: Dark Revelation

Heart of Light

Chapter Fifteen: Dark Revelation

Written by TheCrimsonDM

It took a few minutes, but Twilight’s anger subsided into cold fear. She’d just met with and survived an encounter with one of the most dangerous threats to Equestria. Even Valiant was shaken up by it, and she was usually quick to recover from anything. Then again, Valiant was just as close to this problem as Twilight was.

Twilight was felt like she needed to say something, anything really to lift the dark mood. Of course nothing came to mind. So she looked ahead. Queen Red could have been wrong, but if she wasn’t than the Seekers Archive would be just ahead of them. Though exactly where was a question in and of itself.

There were several boulder sized versions of the glow rocks. Their soft blue illuminating light combined into something bright enough to be a campsite. It was impressive to witness, and Twilight was sure that Maud would have loved this place. The boulders were larger than Twilight was tall. Twilight moved through them, Valiant by her side.

Each one of these glow rocks had markings on them. Carvings, some of them were from unicorn couples writing their names inside hearts, others were less dignified. There was one boulder in particular that had a carving of book with an eye on its cover. The sign of the Seekers. Twilight began pacing around the boulder, Valiant followed her as well.

On one side of the boulder there was a section of rock, roughly the size of a pony that wasn’t glowing. It was rectangular in nature, but the fact that it wasn’t glowing was odd. Twilight stared at this and even if the rock formations seemed familiar to one another she couldn’t figure out why this part wasn’t glowing. A message was written above the stone door.

“How goes the search for truth?”

Twilight blinked. “What is this? Some kind of code? How am I supposed to know the answer to that?”

Valiant stepped up beside her. “You aren’t, this place is for seekers, not for us.”

“Then how do we get in?”

Valiant smiled, she spoke loudly as she faced the door, “Ever seeking.”

“What does that-“

The non glowing section of the boulder slid down into the earth with a grinding noise. Behind it Twilight found a staircase leading down, glowing rocks in all the colors of the rainbow lit the way down. Valiant beamed as she took the first step into the staircase. Twilight couldn’t believe it, they had not only hidden the archive inside a giant glowing rock, but they had a rainbow staircase leading down into it. Her heart couldn’t take the excitement but Twilight followed Valiant’s example and went down the stairs.

They walked among the chromatic lighting for several minutes. Further and further down they went, yet Twilight was beginning to suspect that something was actually wrong. It didn’t seem like there was any end to these stairs no matter how far down she looked. Still they pressed on. It was only after about twenty minutes in that she finally spotted the exit. An old wooden door painted blue.

Twilight and Valiant couldn’t help but to throw open the door and gallop through it. The door opened up to reveal a valley with luscious blue grass glowing softly. The mountains rising all around them stood like protective barriers against the outside. The old temple standing in front of them was casting friendly orange light as it stood there. Pillars lined an old gray earthen path toward the temple.

“W-what?” Valiant said as she nearly galloped into the field. “We went down, not up? Why are we outside again?”

Twilight looked up at the sparkling stars ahead, they looked different somehow and she had a hard time recognizing any of the patterns. All save for one particular orb that was floating above them. Its darkness was outlined with a ring of burning light, though Twilight could make out the green continents, and the deep blue oceans on the orb. Her heart lodged in her throat as she stared in wide eyed wonder.

“That’s… Equestria,” Twilight all but whispered.

Valiant looked up and her eyes widened. “No, it can’t be! W-where are we then?”

Twilight pawed at the gray earth, examined the gray mountains surrounding the valley, and tried to place where she’d seen the blue grass before. She’d seen that grass once before, in a small village hidden deep within a cursed forest. The town itself was known as Hollow Shades, otherwise known as Luna’s town.

“We’re on the moon,” Twilight said in disbelief.

“You… you’re kidding,” Valiant said. “That’s the exact opposite direction than down.

A laugh escaped Twilight’s lips. “We didn’t go down, or up, we went through a portal! That staircase was just a slow moving portal, a bridge between two places in space and time. I-I’ve heard of such things, the Rainbow Bridge of Nhorse mythology for example was said to bring ponies between the worlds. This… this is amazing!”

Twilight galloped toward the temple, Valiant followed her. Now Twilight’s heart was racing for entirely different reasons. “We discovered a Rainbow Bridge, it’s magical architecture once lost to our kind. If the Seekers could build something like that, than perhaps we can glean the secrets ourselves. Think of all the magical potential; pocket dimensions, teleports, even lost historical texts. This is a dream come true!”

Twilight reached the large double doors of the stone structure. The doors were made of a dark oak. They were easily thrown open as Twilight took her first step her breath was stolen away by the sight. Books, hundreds of thousands of books lined just this massive entrance way alone. Doors led in three different directions, multiple stories all stacked with books, and staircases leading up all went to make Twilight dizzy.

A pedestal stood in the center of the entrance hall and blinked to life. A transparent pony appeared next to the pedestal, he wore glasses and had a green coat with brown hair. He smiled at the two.

“Welcome,” he said kindly. “This is the Seekers Archive, and it has been so long since we’ve had any guests. I was beginning to think we’d been lost in time and space, though my last guest had assured me that this was not the case. He and his assistant were quite interested in learning all they could here, and it was nice to aid them. Though that was years ago. Now I can help you, what would you like to learn?”

There was a sweeping energy behind Twilight, and she spun around just in time to watch a shadow fly past her and into the entrance hall. It was easily lost behind one of the doors. Valiant was watching the shadow with great interest.

Meanwhile Twilight saw the one pony she did not want to see ever again. The cloaked alicorn was standing in the dirt road, between the pillars. Twilight drew her Star Blade without hesitation before glancing down at Valiant.

“I will take this mare, you go inside and find any books on the Guardian Hearts,” Twilight ordered Valiant.

Valiant nodded and then looked back at the door with the shadow. “I’ll do my part this time.”

Twilight smiled. “Good luck.”

Valiant ran off to the door and quickly disappeared. This left Twilight to go and meet her opponent in the middle of the road. White stone pillars lined either side of them. Twilight faced her opponent and her alicorn opponent faced her.

“So, you managed to find this place,” the cloaked mare said sadly.

“It is mine, and I won’t let any harm come to it,” Twilight defended.

“The knowledge here would destroy you,” The mare’s horn began glowing with a faint golden light. “So it must be destroyed before it can do more harm than good.”

Twilight pointed her blade at the mare. “Not this time, book murderer.”

***

Valiant galloped through the door and into a long wide room that was at least four stories high. Platforms above her lined the bookshelves which created massive walls. Hallways were created by these shelves and Valiant realized with sudden horror that she was looking at a labyrinth of a library. The crystals set into the wood work of the books gave various shades of light, along with the blue light on the floor allowing her to see.

Valiant took the first few nervous steps forward. This place was amazing, wonderful, and terrible at the same time. If not for the threat of that shadow, which she recognized as being Shade, she would have found the temptation to read these ancient texts to be impossible to ignore. Still she pushed past all the knowledge and looked for any signs of where Shade could have gone.

In her very being she could still feel Boulder’s presence. The light he brought into her was strong, and full. They were just waiting for an opportunity to use their powers, and this seemed like opportunity enough. Of course this time she wasn’t sure how to stop Shade, other than by fighting him.

“Our mission isn’t to fight, it’s to get those books for Twilight,” Boulder explained.

Valiant got to an intersection and looked left and right. “I know that, but if we do find Shade we can’t let him just do whatever. That alicorn he came with is planning to destroy the library, so he must be up to something just as evil.”

“It is true that we may very well be the only ones that can stop him, but you must ask if it is worth it.”

“To help Twilight, yes it is.”

The light crystals to her right were dim compared to the rest of the library’s fantastic lights. Remembering how Shade had darkened the halls in Twilight’s castle before was pretty much all she needed to go on. She went right and walked toward the darkened crystals. Following the darkness like a trail of breadcrumbs proved to be quite easy in fact, perhaps too easy.

She eventually turned down a section of books that looked different. Most of these books were either in black leather, or white leather, creating a checkerboard pattern along the shelves. When Valiant took a peek at some of the titles she nearly stopped. The history of Celestia’s ponies, Umbrum’s Revenge, The Will of The Wisp.

These were just some of the titles here to be had. Valiant grabbed at the last title she read, it had wisp in the title so it must have been important. Skimming through it for a moment it looked to be a fragmented journal all about the wisp ponies. Of course that wasn’t all there was. She also found a book called, ‘History of the war between light and shadow volume three.’

Valiant pulled that one off the shelf as well and opened it up to a random passage.

“The war was looking grim, the alicorns fought the demon hordes to a standstill but yet they could not beat them. The demons were merely too powerful, and too dangerous to be stopped. The demons were as cunning as they were cruel. They made a pact with the Umbrum to join forces against the hard lined order of the Alicorn Empire. Which in tow prompted the Wisp to join forces with the Alicorns. The Wisp did not approve of the Alicorn way of slavery, but they could not allow their eternal enemy to gain an upperhoof. Like cats and dogs, the Umbrum and the Wisp fought on the already blood soaked battlefields. The war had gone from angles and demons to being about light and darkness itself. In the end it was looking like all of the world would be destroyed at this point.”

Valiant stopped reading for a moment. It sounded like the Umbrum and the Wisp were long time enemies, but that didn’t make her feel any better about the idea of fighting Shade. In fact it raised a question she had yet to ask. If he was the last of the Umbrum, and she was the last of the Wisp, where were all the rest of them.

The crystals all around her went out completely leaving this section dark. Shade’s voice came out cold, and harsh. “So you’re curious about the Umbrum as well?”

Valiant stood up and looked around. Even with her body casting white light around her, she couldn’t see Shade anywhere. “I was more curious about the Wisp.”

“…”

“That’s what I am after all,” Valiant admitted. “You’re umbrum, and I’m wisp right? I have never even heard of my race before a couple days ago, and I’ve never met the umbrum.”

“That’s because their dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

His voice was a little softer. “Not just the umbrum. Everypony is dead. Umbrum, wisp, whatever you wanna call them, they died fighting each other. For years their descendents would hunt one another like game. Sometimes the Wisp would have the upperhoof, other times the Umbrum. Finally they just all died. I only live because my father trapped me in a time vortex and put me into the future. As for you… I don’t know why you’re here.”

Valiant shook her head. “I don’t either. Maybe it’s because you are.”

“So you only exist because I do, and vice versa?” He asked, his voice was close. She could almost feel his cold breath on the back of her neck.

“I suppose so, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, does it? If we’re the last, shouldn’t we fight to live, not to kill each other?” Valiant said.

“I never wanted to kill you, I still don’t.”

“Than what are you doing here?”

“Stopping your teacher from making a huge mistake, though I’m probably far too late for that now. I can only do my best to destroy this library. So get out of here and I won’t have to fight you.”

Valiant’s muscles tightened. “I won’t let you bring harm to this place.”

“So be it.”

Valiant looked up and saw a dark shape heading straight for her. With just a few inches of breadth she rolled out of the way as Shade landed on the ground beside her. His eyes were almost glowing red as he reared up on his hind legs, his horn shone black, and shadows reached out for Valiant’s body.

She jumped back and her rear hit a shelf. There was not enough room in here to dodge properly, but she could do something to help fix that handicap. Valiant filled her heart with light. Building it up into a painful ball inside her chest. The shadows circled her, growing closer by the moment. Just when Valiant felt like she was about to burst she loosed the light all in one blast.

Shade screamed as he was physically thrown against the bookshelves. Books tumbled down around him, some pelting him on their way down. His foreleg was burning with white fire, but the darkness had been pushed back and the crystals were vaguely glowing with light again.

Valiant moved carefully around him, positioning herself so that she could have room to jump back if she needed. She felt like a good chunk of her inner store of light was now gone, but she had hurt him and that was good enough for her. “Give up.”

He stood and cursed. “Like Tartarus! I spent my life being bullied, picked on, and beaten since I got to this despicable future. I am umbrum, I am the prince of the Crystal Kingdom, my future was stolen from me by a pretty pink mare and her generic husband!”

Valiant laughed. “And I lived on the streets. Eating out of the garbage when I got too hungry, and avoiding gangs of rapist. You have nothing on me, prince.”

He took a step forward. “At least I can fight.”

Tendrils of shadow jumped up from the ground at his hooves. Valiant ducked under the first one, but the second and third one wrapped around her forelegs. They burned black fire into her legs where they touched. She was picked up into the air and swung over Shade’s head. The tendrils released her mid throw so she went sailing down the aisle until she hit the stone floor and bounced. Her shoulder was in pain, but it was nothing compared to the burns on her legs. There wasn’t much physical damage, but she felt like it had burned at her very soul.

Shade laughed as he charged her. The tendrils whipping around him as though they had a will of their own. Valiant pushed herself up and stared down her attacker. She’d been hurt before, much, much worse than this. It was just a little burn.

Valiant built up the inner light again. Last time she was too far away from her target, this time he wouldn’t get that chance. As he approached she felt the light build up to its limit. She pushed past that limit. Her chest ached and she had to clench her teeth down hard to keep from yelling in pain. Shade reached her, the tendrils whipped down at her. Valiant jumped and tackled Shade, and although she couldn’t do more than budge him with her body, she loosed the light the moment she touched him.

She exploded.

***

Twilight faced the alicorn, sword drawn, eye glaring at the book killer. The alicorn stood her ground, bright orange mane nearly touching the ground. Even with her face mostly obscured by the hood of her cloak, Twilight could tell that the mare was staring at Twilight with a resolved look. Twilight had only faced off against alicorns of this size a few times in her life, there was Nightmare Moon who had more power than she had been able to handle at the time, then Chrysalis whom Twilight still couldn’t imagine fighting in a one on one match. If her previous experience had taught her anything it was that that she was going to have a hard time fighting this mare.

The alicorn took a step forward, and Twilight mirrored the action. They closed the distance to less than ten feet apart and faced one another. Twilight was careful to watch every movement, to feel for any building magical energies, and to keep her sword at the ready. The mare’s frown deepened.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the mare said in an authoritative voice. “Back down, now.”

Twilight stood her ground, but the tone of voice had hit her harder than she’d expected. It was like an old instinct to freeze and be fearful rose up in her. She pushed past that fear. “And let you kill all these books? Never.”

The mare’s horn flashed bright and orange flames erupted from the tip. Twilight brought up a bubble shield just in time. The flames danced around her, though they didn’t impact her shield with anything near the amount of power that she’d been expecting. Hooves galloped past Twilight as the flames eased around her. Twilight spun to see the alicorn making a run for the Archive.

“Not on my watch!” Twilight cried as she teleported. She landed in front of the mare and took a swing at the alicorn. The sword flashed brilliantly through the air, the alicorn reared up. The sword cut through the cloth and the tip came back red. The alicorn growled as her legs came crashing down upon Twilight’s head.

The blow caused pain to flash across her face and knocked her to the ground. Instinct kicked in, and before the alicorn could land a second blow Twilight teleported away, closer to the Archive. There was a small cut on the alicorn’s chest, the crimson stained the bone white fur. Twilight’s face didn’t feel much better, she was sure there was going to be a bruise at least on her cheek.

“I do not wish to fight you,” the mare said.

“And I refuse to allow you to burn anymore books.”

“Now that it’s been found it must be destroyed.”

Rage filled Twilight at the thought of more precious books being killed by this evil mare. Magic filled her horn and Twilight screamed. “Destroy this!” A blast of red energy flew from Twilight’s horn and washed over the alicorn.

For a moment Twilight was sure she had landed a direct blow. Then she saw the flaming sphere that had formed around the alicorn. The attack had managed to blow back the mare’s cloak and knock her hood back. As Twilight’s spell left she was able to clearly see who was standing before her. Twilight’s eye widened in horror at the revelation, but quickly burned as tears fought their way to the surface.

“Why? Why would you try to ruin this for me?” Twilight shouted.

Celestia gave Twilight an apologetic look as her hair returned to its normal sherbet colors. “I’m sorry.”