Obsidian Series

by Furious Thestral

No one to blame

Moondancer had always been a morning pony, always ready and awake by sunrise, but recently she has been spending her nights by her desk, illuminated by the light of a candle and on front of her and a special book which she has bought a few moons ago when she noticed it inside a bookstore with a cover that called her attention and a title that convinced her to buy it; Me and my Shadow by Stigyan.

An autobiography written by a stallion from the far past, when Equestria was just in the first centuries of its founding and life was so different from what the present era was. She would never dare to let this opportunity pass by and get enraptured with its pages by the first day. She had been losing track of time reading the book followed up by a second time just to cross reference it with history books to mark real historical events in order to have a more accurate timeline of the travels of Stigyan and the Pillars.

It all went good but it all went better once she learned about a second volume and a third coming on its way, Moondancer was certain to enjoy spending hours on her reading but it all comes down to the fact that her schedule was thrown out of the window, to which she was now certain to fix as she made plans to go out with her friends just like princess Twilight had taught her, ot also helped to have the book of Friendship at hoof in the desk of her study.

Moondancer dragged her hooves to the kitchen and settled up a mug in order to prepare for some coffee in order to have a proper wake up, followed up with some oats cereal and toast, and enjoy another day of studies in the library and have lunch with her friends.

Until a knock in the door interrupted her train of thoughts, she noticed that the knocking sounded sharp and urgent. Whoever this was, it wasn't one of her friends.

Giving herself a mumbled groan and a few spins of her spoon on the coffee she grunted to jump off her chair and bring her mug with her to the front door. Giving it a good sip before opening the door and brace herself for the uninvited guest.

To her surprise a royal guard was in the front, looking at Moondancer with a critical eye, "you are Moondancer?" He asked not for the sake of the question but for the mare to confirm the answer.

Before answering, Moondancer gave another sip from her mug and hummed in annoyance, "that's me alright." She was still half a mug away from having a decent mood and the fact that a pony from the royal guard came to her home made her mood much more sour.

The stallion ignored the rudeness of her tone and continued on to what he came for, "the crown requires your assistance, do please follow me into a carriage," he said in a curt tone and was about to turn around and march away but Moondancer stopped him from moving.

"Wait, what is going on? Why do they need me?" She asked, never once had she been summoned by the princess, one or the other, and she was certain that there were other scholars that have far better academics to be selected than her.

The guard turned around and looked directly at Moondancer, "that information is classified and I cannot discuss it here," he gave a firm voice to impose how much of this was left out of discussion but he then softened his posture. "As for the other question, you were chosen because of your expertise on Wave Splitter's magic theory about magic frequencies." He replied before trotting to a stationed carriage and hitched himself up in order to pull it.

Moondancer, for her part, was now curious on what was going on that they needed her help but if the thing about her thesis is true then there might be one thing that she could think about that was happening. She had to move quickly now. Drowning the rest of her coffee and letting the burning sensation to wake her up fully and using her magic to bring her saddlebags, filling them up with books, ink, quills and parchment up to the brim and then some. She rushed up to the ornamental carriage and took off. She felt strange, being called to help the royal guard in some sort of mission that she had no idea what it was about and even worse was the hot coffee in her stomach that gave her a bad feeling, hopefully it wasn't literal.

~~***~~

Twilight was holding on to the door until she locked the door with her magic and glared at Starlight with anger, "Starlight what is happening here, why is everypony acting so weird?" She demanded, thinking to herself that this prank was getting out of hoof.

Starlight straightened up her posture, "as of today all the unicorns in Ponyville will swear fealty to your crown, my queen, to support you in anything you need for the creation of a new queendom, here in Ponyville." She started with glee, Trixie nodding along with Starlight's every word.

Twilight never thought how many times she felt her mouth was wide open, she might fear that it would never close up at some point. Hearing this was nothing she wanted to know and right here was Starlight saying the words she dreaded most and by spades with the entire unicorn population backing her up, something has to be wrong from all of this.

"You can't be serious about this, Starlight. Please, just tell me that this is just a prank and I will look past it all, especially what you did to Trixie." She pleaded, wishing with all her might that this might still be a dream and all it took was to wake up in her bed, inside her bedroom, or to have Luna just appear out of nowhere and laugh at her for a prank well made.

Starlight nodded and smiled atTwilight, “I am absolutely serious on this as all the other unicorns in town are,” she replied, ignoring completely how Twilight was flabbergasted and walked past her to the door. ”As of right now I was just taking in those who just arrived and what their new job will be inside the castle.” With that she opened theastle doors and thye ponies started swarming inside.

Twilight didn’t had a moment to process what Starlight's words mean as the lobby was now swarmed by ponies, mostly unicorns but some other earth ponies and a few pegasi, both of the last were a bit confused on what was really happening. All of them surrounding the princess with words of praise and adoration, teying to gain the attention of their princess.

That was when a magic barrier seperated Twilight from the crowd, "that is enough everypony, no need to overwhelm queen Twilight with praises and even more when we have to swear our loyalty to her." Starlight reminded, looking at the unicorns and a few others. "Now do be heading to the throne room, in order, and we can make it all appropiate and official." She began ushering the ponies down the hall while Trixie took the lead to guide the group towards the map room.

Twilight watched the giant group of ponies move until it was only her and Starlight as the pink unicorn walked closer and began dusting off Twilight's coat, "don't you fret, my queen, they are just excited to serve you," she gave a gentle smile. "Now, do come along, we better not keep them waiting any further." Starlight took lead, going directly to the map room.

"Starlight wait!" Twilight finally found her voice and stopped her friend from moving but she was at lost of words, nothing was making sense and everything was going to fast to process anything but she needed to regain some semblance of control and find out what was happening in town. "Starlight, all of this is going to fast and there is no need to be so rushed about this… ceremony." She wasn't sure on what she was saying or how deep this hole she was making but she had to say something to delay this to be future Twilight's problem.

"How about we take our time to get things in order and have a proper ceremony," she looked nervous and was sweating but she had to keep face. "How about… three days from today?"

Starlight gave a long look at Twilight, showing signs of suspiscion about Twilight's proposal for five seconds, until she gave a nod in approval, "an excellent idea, my queen, we can have ponies delefate these tasks and have a more ceremonial way to pledge our loyalty it will be grandiose." She enphasized the last part stretching her forehooves in excitment. "Leave the ceremony to me, my queen, I will have everything ready and with the aid of your selected subjects." She bowed to Twilight and pranced directly to the map room.

Twilight felt her stinach drop, she now made things worse by saying all that to Starlight and niw every unicorn will follow on that same suggestion. She needed to get to the bottom of this situation and fast before things get much worse.

"Miss Twilight?"

Twilight thought that the worse was yet to come but she undereestimated the situation completly. She turned aroind and saw another group of ponies, most of the earth ponies and pegasi were assembled behind Twilight and each of them bore faces from confusion to indignity, one in particular was a face of worry that came from Muffins who was standung in the front, closest to Twilight.

The grey pegasus gave a step forward and with her good eye she looked directly towards Twilight, "w- what is happening? I saw this morning Dinky and Amethyst walking directly to the castle, here, and when I asked them why they told me they wanted to serve you forever," her voice carried worry and she spoke slowly as to measure her words. "I mean no offense on them saying that they want to offer their service to the crown but it all happened so suddenly and I have this bad feeling ever since."

Twilight soon found that all theese ponies were just as scared and probably angry as well and that didn't bond well with Twilight, "do not panic, everypony there must be an explanation for all of this," she knew this wasn't what these ponies needed to hear but as it is it was all sge had to say. "Right now, I want you all to continue back to your daily lives until we find an explanarion that is happening to all the unicorns, I promise." She declared, watching that most ponies changed their expressions to relief and that eased Twilight for a moment.

"How can we trust in you!?" A voice came from the background, angry and accusing, Twilight had no idea who it was but that was not important as it turned out that the question itself made everypony angry once more.

Ponies began to ask the same question, demand an explanation or just to shout as the mob began to grow angrier and Twilight felt overwhelmed by all of this getting out of control.

"Ah believe her!" Shouted a louder voice, shutting off the crowd, everypony stepping aside in order to allow Applejack to make her way among them. As the mare that called out walked from the entrance into the hall. "There is no darn reason to think Twilight would be lying to us, not then not now." She then stopped next to Twilight and looked at the ponies reunited to center the attention towards her.

Most of them looked aprehensive and ashamed, muttering their apologies and glanced away. Muffkns was one of the few that seemed relieved from things getting out of control.

Twilight took the chance to address to the ponies and made sure to have all of their attention. "As I have noticed, whatever that is happening is only affecting unicorns right now we may not know more until we begin an investigation so my advice is for everypony right here is to spread the word to continue all with their usual activities and keep an eye out for anything suspicious," she made her voice loud and clear, making sure everypony got her attention. "Muffins, please let Mayor Mare know about this and to have Ponyville in high alert." She added fir the grey pegasus, who nodded and gave her a salute before flying off. Soon after everypony got the message and spreaded out back to town to convey others about the emergency.

Applejack waited until everypony left and then gave a stern look at Twilight "alright then, what's the plan?" She was expecting Twilight with information on how to act and was ready to take in her rol in order to help her friend.

Twilight looked away and gave a deep sigh, "I don't really know what to do, this all happened so fast and unexpected that I can barely grasp on the situation right now," she admitted. Still she had to find a solution to this and fast. "For now we better bring the others and send a letter to Canterlot for starters, then we better find for anything unusual in town."

Spike took this opoortuninty to jump in with parchment and quill on claws, "already ahead of you Twi, got this note of emergency on the ready to send off." He exclaimed, rolling up the parchment into a scroll and held it up in his right claw. "I even used the dire message script number three." He puffed his chest proudly.

Twilight beamed a smile of gratitud until she heard the last part, "wait, number three? Why not use number two instead?" She asked, looking a bit sheepish giving pleading eyes to Spike.

Spike grumbled in neyween breaths as he made a few adjustments to the parchment and proofreaded it.

Meanwhile Applejack watched everything and felt a bit curious, "what's suppoused to be different between number two and three?" She lifted her hat to scratch her head in confusion.

Twilight shuffled her hooves together and looked a bit nervous, they are basically the same but the main dufference is that number three implies that I don't know what to do while number two asks for assisstance."

The orange farm pony gave a flat stare at her friend but didn't comment on the matter as the town was going through some trouble to be arguing among each other aboit matters of pride.

"Aaand done!" Spike exclaimed as he burst the letter in flames in order to send it to Canterlot, directly towards princess Celestia.

"Great!" Twilight was becoming more confident with every action they did and looked at Applejack. "Now we just need to gather the others and we can-." Her plan was now interrupted by the cries of a mare from the front door.

"Twilight!" Shouted Rarity as she dashed directly at the mulberry alicorn. "I have come here, towards you, to make an announcement of my upmost loyalty to you!" She stopped close by and began to kneel before the mare.

In a rush of panic Twilight and Applejack stopped Rarity from lowering herself and hold the unicorn in a stupor.

"Rarity, you know that you don't need to do that, we're friends, remember?" Teilight forced a smile as she hoped that her friend could see reason.

Rarity, for her part, just laughed and gave a dismissive wave from her hoof, "oh Twilight, as modest as ever," she adjusted her mane and gave a few eyelashes. "I know that since we are friends we must be treated as equals, but now that you are a queen you are above any of us all." She added, giving a look of total adoration.

Applejack watched everything with an uneasy feeling, she knew how infatuated her friend could get about celebreties but this was just down right fanatism that she feared that Rarity would end up licking the dirt Twilight stepped on. "Alright missy, get your act together and stop being so fangirl on Twilight," she pulled Rarity back a bit and looked at her directly to cement her words on that skull of hers.

Rarity seemed displeased, holding Applejack's hooves and freeing herself, "excuse me? You dare to tell moì, to not be infatuated to the most important pony of our lives!?" Her voice began to grow as her horn sparked with magic and was pointing towards Applejack. "I have you know that this fangirl will stop at nothing to ensure Her Royal Majesty Twilight, will become the sole ruler of this kingdom and if I have to step on over on our frie-"

"Enough!"

Twilight stomp her hoof down and standed in between Applejack and Rarity, she needed to focus on seperating both mares rather than being afraid of the words that were not spoken. "Rarity, I… will have a coronation in three days and will have you to make me a dress for the oxassion. I trust in your skills to make it spectacular." Without any way to get through Rarity, Twilight went with her least favorite option and decided to distract her friend with a task instead of fighting on the situation.

Rarity for her part was ecstatic at the order as she couldn't resist the urge to shout in excitment as she clapped her hooves together, "oh yes, my queen, I thank you for this honor and will do my very best to make the most beautiful dress that Equestria- no the world has ever witnessed!" She shouted, gave a bow to Twilight and rushed out of the castle, directly towards her botique.

Applejack was still stunned by the attitude Rarity showed off, managing to reach for her hat and fan it to her face, "well Ah'll be… never seen that mare that angry, 'cept for that time Discord used his magic on her and attacked me for a rock and yet that felt tame compared to this." She adjusted her hat back.

"I never thought they would act like this. This is far more serious than I thought," Twilight was concerned and worried, she glanced at the map room were the other unicorns were residing and began to worry if any of them would be able to cause any harm to anypony if they spoke ill of herself. "We better act immediately. Applejack go for Pinkie and Fluttershy, I will head out for Rainbow Dash!" She then instructed. Giving no time to waste as Applejack nodded and headed out to the town.

"What can I do?" Spike adked, eager to do more in order to help.

Twilight frowned, she considered in rejecting his help, dearing that this was the plan of one of the dangwrous villains and it could place Spike jn any sort of risk that she feared would be turned against her but to tell him to stay safe would make Spike take even more dangerous options and that was far worse.

"Stay close to Starlight and Trixie, keep an eye on them and try to keep them from causing harm on others," she walked closer to Spike and placed her tight hoof on his shoulder. "But please stay safe, that is your priority and main concern, run away if you have to, understood?" She gave a solemn look at her little dragon and tighten her grip on him.

Spike wanted to dissmiss that last order a d that he would be fine bit looking at Twilight he dicided to reconsider. "I understand, Twilight, I will be fine." He gave a salute and rushed back down into the halls of the castle.

Applejack looked at Twilight with worry and glanced at Spike, who just turned around the corner, "uh, Twilight, don't 'cha think that having Spike close tah Starlight is mighty dangerous?" She trusted in her friend's desicion but she still needed to hear her reasons.

"My guess is that Starlight and the other unicorns must be under the influence of a relic that induces them to follow an especific pony, in this case me, to obey and be loyal above everything else. If that is the case, they will think of Spike as my second in command and will probably listen to him." She theorized, hoping that she was right and nothing bad will happen to him. "As far as I can tell as well, there is a high chance that Spike will find the culprit of this disaster much faster than any of us too." She was convinced that if there is a culprit to all of this they will link Starlight to their evil plans.

"Ah guess there is no need to argue with this then." Applejack sighed, accepting that Twilight was now getting ideas for plans and making her move. "For now, we might get starting to get the others and stop this once and for all." She then motioned to the door and started galloping, Twilight going right behind her.

~~***~~

Agent Sweetie Drops was laying down in the tree braches tyat gave her access to the main door of the castle and lowered her binoculars after watching Applejack and Twilight leave the building, in her hurry to spy on the mulberry alucorn she only had time to suit up and bring her binoculars but no other device that allowed her to hear their conversation.

It was enough for her to get some information but not answers to consider Twilight the culprit but right now she had two possible targets, three if the chance of Starlight faking her condition was plausible to be false. Yet no one to blame for this incident.

She jumped of the tree and headed directly to the castle. She needed to investigate what the unicorns will be doing, making sure that they will not cause trouble to the other Ponyvillians and to check on the possibility of an unknown pony among them, perhaps, with any luck, said pony would be the culprit that controlled them all from the background. Another matter was the time, for all she knew Ponyville could be only the first stop, a trial on how to take control of unicorns or even worse the other pony races, she needed to act quickly.

For now she had to observe and analyze, for the sake of this town and her friends.

~~***~~

Spike wanted to rush in to find Starlight but right now he realized something important, their newest guest who might still sleeping in her room, he quickly took a detour and took the stairs up to the guests rooms.

At the door he knocked three times and waited but nopony respobd, he knocked again a bit harder this time and pressed his fin on the door to hear anything but no sound came from inside. Spike decided to be drastic as there was an emergency happening and opened the door.

"Hello? Mindy are you awake?" Her asked, walking inside the room and looking at the dishelved bed and poked it. "Something is going on in town and we need you to be awake." He whispered, expecting to awake the mare and warn her about the possible dangers but she was still sleeping.

With much deliberation he decided to tug on the beesheets and wake up the mare and apologize for his rudeness. To which his surprise was the bed was empty and was only filled with pillows, he was now worried and rushed around the room, looking in the wardrobe, bathroom, unders the bed even inside the bathroom but there was no sign of the mare. Spike started to panic, bitting his claws and jumping on each leg not knowing what to do. Twilight had to know about this at once.

From the window of said room gave view of the lake that was connected to the waterfall of the castle inwhich was seen a black earth pony running away from the place.