Chapter One: The once proud Musician
“The crystal empire has returned,” Celestia’s voice repeated in Twilight’s head as she walked through the enormous empire.
“Find a way to restore the crystal ponies’ happiness,” Cadence’s voice gleamed in her mind.
Both of their words had disturbed her for some time and she wondered if she actually could defeat king Sombra. She turned her head to the right to a blue colt trying to get up, out of kindness she helped him. He had a dark blue coat, a slightly brighter shade mane and tail, a black streak going through his mane and two littler streaks going down the sides of his tail, and finally he had brown, cynical eyes.
“Ugh, why are you helping me?” the unicorn asked.
“You looked like you needed it,” she replied with a smile.
“Wait you don’t look like the rest of the ponies around here, you seem more angry than sad,” she stared at his slightly less dull blue coat, “Are you a crystal pony?”
“I’m not a crystal pony of course; don’t these mares know nobility when they see it?”
“You’re a noble?” she asked.
“But of course, does anypony not see a member of the note family when they see one?”
Twilight thought for a minute, it sounded familiar. Then she realized, “Wait, THE note family, the family of the most talented musicians in Equestria?!”
“Is there any other?” he questioned.
“No but… the note family perished over a thousand years ago,” she said.
“How, I’ve been in this hell hole for a few years, maybe a few of my family have died but certainly not completely perished.”
It instantly snapped in her head, this stallion is not aware of the curse that king Sombra had put upon the empire.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but when Celestia defeated Sambra, he placed a curse that banished the crystal empire for a thousand years.”
The instant King Sambra and Princess Celestia were mentioned; the stallion felt an immense hatred.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked.
“WHERE IS HE?” the colt screamed.
“Calm down, he is returning soon from his prison and will be attacking soon; we need to find a way to make the crystal ponies like they were, do you have any ideas?”
“Tell me which direction he is heading from,” he demanded.
“Umm that way,” she pointed a hoof.
“Can you hear me King Sambra? Silvernote of the note family will kill you!” he screamed.
With that he rushed through the city in the direction he was pointed and pushed everypony who got in his way to the side as he charged. You will pay for what you did to me, Silvernote thought.
One thousand years ago
Silvernote looked outside of his carriage as it lazily rolled through the country path. He half enjoyed the gentle wind blowing in his pure light blue mane and tail, as his calm eyes scrolled through the scenery.
“Are we almost at the empire?” he asked the ponies dragging the carriage.
“Yes sir it’s been three weeks and we ran out of food, but we’re going to eat very well tonight,” Dustpan replied.
“So why do I have to ride in this carriage, why not the train,” Silvernote asked.
“Nobility has no place on public transport sir, by the way thank you so much for playing a fine tune on that wonderful clarinet.”
“You’re sure to knock’em at the opera house,” Brassbravo added.
“Thanks guys it means a lot to know that this will be a good performance,” silvernote said.
“Isn’t this your first though?” Dustpan asked.
“Yeah that’s why I need some reassurance,” he said as he stared at his flank.
“Do you think you’re going to get your cutie mark today?”
“Shut up about that!” Brassbravo yelled.
“It’s fine guys I’m pretty happy with my life if I do or don’t get it,” silvernote said.
After that the ride was silent for a bit and silvernote decided to get some sleep. he dreamt about his times in the Canterlot gardens after practicing. his parents him to have the best musical education, so he was sent to Canterlot as an honorary member of the Royal Canterlot Symphony. He had just learned how to play the trombone to add to his skills of the clarinet, the trumpet, and the entire string family. Out of all his favorite was his clarinet with it's somewhat majestic yet high pitched tone.
During his time spent in Canterlot, he usually walked around the castle grounds doing miscellaneous things in order to keep himself entertained when he wasn't practicing his heart out. At the time, he was still a young foal at the time, maybe around eight or nine. Sometimes he would visit Princess' Celestia and Luna and they would talk hours on end. Silvernote was a bit of a night owl so a lot of the time he would roll around in bed and eventually visit Princess Luna when he was lonely. Out of the rather personal conversations, he had boned with Luna a bit more than Celestia, but he still thought of them as sisters, always guarding him in some way or another.
One sunny day, he was laying in the grass when Princess Celestia peered over him.
"Oh hey Celestia," Silvernote glowed. he always addressed her like that due to the bonding experience he had with her. "Is something wrong, you're usually in the throne chamber at this time."
"Silvernote, I think it is time for you to go out and give a solo performance a try." She smiled.
"I don't think I'm up to it yet, I mean I'm fine in a group, but I tend to get a little nervous on stage."
"You've been practicing here for almost a year now and I'm sure you can do it!"
"I guess, but they might laugh at me."
"What, just because you don't have a cutie mark? That's very uncommon to happen at the crystal empire, you could go there first."
"But that's because anypony who's anypony is there, I could never get booked there!"
"Here, I'll make a special arrangement and you can go off immediately."
"You can do that!"
"Of course I can, now go pack your things and tell my sister of the big news, I'll have everything set up right when you walk out the door."
Silvernote jumped up and down all the way through the castle and got ready for his new opportunity.
Two hours later
He awoke to a rumble, the carriage had stopped. He looked around still laying down when he saw some crystal buildings, I’m in the empire, he thought. He got up to see that his two servants had been missing, I wonder where they went, he thought. He took a step out of the carriage to see all of the crystal ponies walking around pulling heavy assortments of things when all of a sudden a great big black stallion with green eyes and purple flames coming out of them.
“Why aren’t you working?” the stallion asked.
“Why are you ordering me around?” silvernote questioned back.
“Ahh you’re the pony I left alone for a bit, I am King Sombra and you are now my slave.”
“Not if I can help it.”
And with that, silvernote charged up his horn to perform a spell when it just stopped. What’s happening, he thought. Then he heard his stomach growl. Oh right I haven’t eaten for five hours.
“Hungry? I have a special place for you,” The evil stallion grinned.
Over the few weeks that silvernote had been imprisoned he had to go through intense manual labor. Working all day with two hour sleeping periods, carrying around three hundred pound carts, after a week of this, his hooves felt broken, worn down and damaged. But then princess’ Luna and Celestia came to the empire and defeated King Sambre and everything went dark.
Present time
He galloped through the fields until he reached the barrier that had been keeping the darkness away. He noticed the barrier had started to crack and saw a black fog in the distance. That’s him, I know it’s him, he thought, all I have to do is wait and then I can get revenge.
Thirty minutes later
Silvernote sat and anxiously waited for the barrier to break when he heard hoof steps behind him, he turned back to see twilight again.
“You can’t defeat King Sombra on your own Silvernote,” she said.
“I can, my horn is no joke you know.”
“I’ve already asked princess Celestia to have someone take you to canterlot.”
“Why, I need to at least hit him for the pain he caused me.”
“He’ll kill you.”
Right then, a flying carriage had arrived next to them, royal guards lugging it around. A gray pony popped out of it and jumped onto the grass. In Silvernote’s perspective, the gray Pegasus had a shaggy white mane with blue highlights at the bottom and a shaggy white tail with blue highlights in random assortments. It was odd though, the bases of his wings were the same gray color but the tops had white feathers instead. To top it off he had a weirdly shaped guitar for a cutie mark.
“Hello, my name is Rhythm, I’m supposed to pick up an umm… Silvernote, age… one thousand and twenty?” he said questionable to his order.
“Yes, that’s him,” twilight said, pointing a hoof at Silvernote.
“No, I’m not leaving until I get at least one shot at his face,” Silvernote said angrily.
“Well my orders are to bring you to canterlot now so it sounds like we have different plans,” Rhythm said.
“Well I guess you could shoot him while flying away,” he added.
Silvernote was infuriated by the suggestion, but he decided to play harmless for a little bit. He had held a grudge on Celestia ever since he had been stranded in the evil crystal empire. He knew that she could’ve done something about twenty times sooner. He could remember it, the brightened hope he felt when she and her sister had arrived to save everypony. The thoughts of seeing his family again, the embraces of being able to play an instrument again, all thrown down the drain now.
“Ugh fine,” Silvernote said disgustingly.
With that the blue unicorn got onto the carriage and sat down. Rhythm trotted his way onto the carriage with a carefree smile. Does this guy enjoy getting a simple mission done or something, Silvenote wondered.
“Let’s go boys,” Rhythm said.
The white pegasai galloped at first, then flapped their wings, and with amazing speed they took off. When they exited the barrier, it was about five minutes before they reached the black cloud that Sambre had leaded.
“If you want your shot do it now,” Rhythm ordered.
Silvernote charged up his horn for around ten seconds until it glowed a great large light blue.
“Are you going to shoot or not?” Rhythm asked.
“Just a little more power,” he replied.
Soon, his eyes glowed green and looked exactly like king Sambre’s eyes, “now I will,” he said in a very angry tone.
“This is you’re power Sombra, you should’ve kept me from the library or I wouldn’t have learned this new trick!” he screamed.
Silvernote shot a large purple and black beam from his horn. It was so powerful he could barely stand from his own blast. Rhythm stared in amazement, not knowing the type of magic Silvernote had been using. After five seconds, the blast had ceased and Silvernote felt weary from the energy that he used.
“That was awesome bro, how did you do that?” Rhythm asked.
“Oh it’s just-“ he felt a slight pain then immediately passed out onto the ground.
“Okay boys we need to double time it to the castle right away,” Rhythm shouted.
He looked back from the carriage to see that the black cloud hadn’t halted at all, in fact, king Sambre hadn’t even looked the other way when the blast hit him. Probably shouldn’t tell Silvernote about it, he thought.
Silvernote dreamed in his unconscious state, of him and dustpan raiding the libraries of the crystal empire so he could learn a few spells for self-defense. He was only fifteen after all and only knew some flashy spells to wow a crowd.
Present time, Forty-five minutes later
Silvernote woke up in the middle of the carriage and rubbed his eyes.
“Hey you’re not dead,” Rhythm said happily.
“Did I hit him,” Silvernote bolted up.
“Yeah don’t worry; you hit him with such a powerful blast that the cloud of his body was three times smaller!” he lied. The two royal guards rolled their eyes as they flew the carriage.
“Great what a relief,” he said sighing.
“How couldn’t you have just forgotten about it?” Rhythm asked.
“My he whipped us around like we were his slaves for years and I needed at least some revenge,” Silvernote said.
Rhythm thought about it for a minute and decided it made sense.
“Oh yeah, what was that evil looking beam you shot from your horn?” he asked.
“It’s pretty simple, crystal ponies learned that you can reflect your magic upon your emotions, it’s kind of the way the entire empire lives. One night, I snuck into one of the libraries for a couple of hours and searched through a ton of books and found out how to use it correctly.” He explained.
“I’ve never even seen the anypony use magic like that,” Rhythm replied.
“They probably don’t have any anger to dish out with their magic,” Silvernote replied.
A few minutes later they had arrived at the castle of canterlot. Sure is bigger than I remember; Silvernote thought.
“Follow me,” Rhythm ordered.
They walked through the castle, Silvernote staring at all of the different expensive looking objects and after a minute or two they arrived at the throne chamber. so this is what she's been doing while we were all trapped in the empire? Silvernote glared around.
“Okay any more anger that you need to lose before we talk to Celestia?” Rhythm asked.
“Not any that’s not directed at her,” Silvernote replied.
“Celestia have mercy on me,” Rhythm whispered.
They opened the doors to see Celestia sitting on her throne, “I’ve been waiting to see you Silvernote,” she said in her usually graceful voice.
“The feeling is mutual,” Silvernote glared.
Oh god why does it have to be me to see somepony die by the princess, Rhythm thought.
“Rhythm… I want you to leave for a bit, I need to talk to Silvernote,” the princess ordered.
With that Rhythm left the chamber.
“You have every right to be angry with me, the entire crystal empire does, I couldn't save them, and in an instant they were all banished for a thousand years after all... including you.”
“And I am mad, you couldn’t even fully defeat a stallion? What kind of princess are you!” Silvernote said, getting angrier.
“We had to stop and think for a bit and find the most effective way to defeat King Sambra,” her voice unchanged.
“That that many years,” Silvernote cried.
“My family, my friends, their all dead and were most likely devastated of my disappearance! The difference between me and the crystal ponies is that they have something to turn to! I have nothing now because of you!”
“Oh Silvernote, I’m so sorry,” the Princess cried for the first time in a long while.
It was the first time Silvernote had ever seen Princess Celestia ever cry. It pained him a little to see it, but moreover it just made him even more mad. She isn't sorry about you she's sorry for herself! Silvernote screamed in his head.
“NO! You’re not sorry yet!”
He drew energy into his horn and let the dark magic take over. His eyes returned to the demon state. He knows how to use that? Celestia was shocked that he'd go that far. I mustn’t let him out of the castle. He fired the purple beam out of his horn. Celestia did the same thing with hers and after a minute of her slowly winning, she hit him directly in his horn and Silvernote had passed out. a second had passed and Rhythm busted in with the royal guard.
“Princess Celestia, what is going on here?” Rhythm asked.
“I need to give him amnesia, you’re going to take him to ponyville Rhythm and get him far away from here,” she stated calmly.
“Can I ask why?”
“This is a need to know basis and I’m sorry Rhythm, but you don’t need to know.”
A few hours later
the two princess' looked at Silvernote in the infirmary, Princess Luna was still crying from what she had been told about the incident.
"Are you sure there's nothing else we could have done?"
"I'm sorry sister, this is the last thing I wanted to happen to him, but it was my only choice, take one last look at him, because when he wakes up he won't ever be the same."