A once thought extinct creature awakens inside of ponyville much to the terror of the residents and the creature's confusion.
Twilight is reading a book on ancient history when she and everyone else in the castle hear a loud thud coming from the map room. Everyone arrives to find a terrifying and once thought extinct Gorgon to have fallen out of the roots of the Golden Oaks Library. Much to everyone's surprise, however, the Gorgon is a kindhearted soul who is only confused about how he got inside their chandelier. When he discovers what has happened he finds himself even more confused because of his fragmented memories and the terrified faces of the Ponyville residents. Soon after the discovery the town is trying to come to a decision about their new, scaly 'friend' and it certainly isn't anything to do with love and tolerance.
It was a beautiful day within Ponyville. The residents had no cares in the world for they were simply admiring the nice day and having fun with their friends. Applejack was working on the farm with the rest of her family, Rarity was busy making a new set of dresses for Sapphire Shores, Rainbow Dash was Training with the rest of the Wonderbolts and Fluttershy was having a tea party with Discord and Tree Hugger to try to get them to become closer friends. As for Twilight Sparkle, she was settling down to read a book within the cavernous library that she called her own. The particular book she was reading was one that she had taken from the ruined castle of Celestia and Luna. The book was about ancient history, a history that was many millennia older than the uniting of the pony tribes into what we call Equestria. In fact, the history contained within was older than the first recorded meeting of the tribes. The story that she was reading was about the Earth pony tribe.
"There once were three Pony siblings belonging to the queen of us all, lady Platinum Crown." Twilight read aloud to herself. "These three siblings did not have to work like everypony else." Twilight continued. "Yet, the youngest of the three would work with the others so that she would know the pain that everypony else was going through and so that she would be a better ruler. Alas, one day, she discovered that she would not be a ruler but rather her older sister, her hero, would be the next ruler. She, however, did not care about that as she only saw her sister as a kind pony who would never hurt anyone."
"One fateful day, lady Platinum Crown had fallen ill and so the elder sister took the throne while her father recovered. The decisions that she made were rather strange within the first week, at least to the younger sister. The elder sister made sure that everyone knew exactly who was in charge and had them build new statues of her all over the city. Then everything changed when she threw Platinum Crown into the dungeon. This was a wake up call for the younger sister. Her elder sister was not to be trusted and so she turned to her brother. She thought that he would know what to do."
"However, her brother turned out to be just as cruel and wicked as the elder sister. First, he staged a rebellion to overthrow her, then he threw her into the dungeon and finally he enacted the same exact principles as the elder sister had done in her short reign. This had devastated the youngest sister and so she tried to overthrow her brother but the one thing he was that she thought he was was intelligent. Her plan has backfired and so she was thrown into the same dungeon cell as her mother."
"Her mother was no longer sick yet all the dungeon guards acted as if she was still recovering. This had shocked the youngest sister and so she did the last thing that she thought she could do. She prayed to the gods." Suddenly, Twilight started to laugh. "This really is ancient history if these ponies believed in gods." Twilight snickered to herself. After regaining her composure, she continued "The gods heard her prayer but because they could see into the future they knew what kind of ruler she was going to be and it was the exact same as her two siblings."
"The Gods decided to curse the siblings to be forever outcast from their people. The three would be transformed into hideous monsters. First their skin grew scales instead of fur, then their hind legs fused into a snake like tail, after that their front legs would become more skiny and grow clawed fingers and finally their manes would turn into a group of snakes that would be attached to their heads. Because of their hideous appearance they were outcast and left to die within the dangerous woods."
"The gods however were not done. They would make their lives living hell. The youngest daughter was given a special power, all those that smelled in the fumes of the venom of her snakes or were bitten by them would be turned to stone. The brother was given a literal silver tongue. He would be able to manipulate anyone into doing what he wanted. The eldest sister was given the curse of insanity. This meant that the three of them could never make friends again."
"The gods, however, take a small measure of pity on the youngest of the three siblings. The venom would have a small chance of not killing the pony who smelled it in or was bitten by one of her snakes but instead would turn into a creature that was immune to the venom and could spread it with their own bite. This would mean that there was a chance that the youngest daughter would be able to make a friend."
"Along with the curses came new names for the siblings. The eldest sister was renamed Stheno, the brother was renamed Euryale and the youngest sister was named Medusa. We have now collectively called the three of them Greater Gorgons and the beings created from the venom of Medusa Lesser Gorgons." Twilight finished. She put the book onto the table, satisfied that she had read enough that day, and started to head towards her room when she heard a loud thump coming from the map room.
Twilight hurried over to the map room, meeting both Spike and Starlight on the way.
"Spike? Starlight?" Questioned Twilight.
"Yes Twilight?" replied Spike somewhat nervously.
"I thought one of you had made that noise." said Twilight.
"Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing." Starlight said with some concern in her voice.
"So if none of us made the noise, then who or what did?" said Spike with creeping dread in his voice. All three of them rushed over to the map room and slammed the door open.
Upon entering, they all saw something that had completly caught them off gaurd. Everything was as it should be. Both Twilight and Starlight were confused while Spike was simply filled with relief.
"Well it seems like nothing was wrong then." said Spike with certainty.
"Then what created the noise?" Twilight questioned. "For all we know whatever made the noise is in here or in another part of the castle." With that sentence, Spike's face whitened and his heart filled with dread and fear.
Seeing her friend like this, Starlight stepped in and said "Hey, for all we know it could have simply been a bug that flew in here and accidentally triggered one of Pinkie's confetti traps which then failed and created the noise we all heard."
"You think so?" said Spike with some of the color returning to his face.
"I know so." relpied Starlight.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that." exclaimed Twilight. "Look!"
On the ground, behind the map, they saw a strange creature. After a glance they shunned their eyes for expectations of the worse, yet they couldn't keep their eyes off it for long. After a closer look thay had no idea of what it was. It was scaly, long, had claws like a dragon, but unlike dragons, it was cold to the touch. It also had a strong looking head, distinct from the body, with eyelids that were closed tight.
The creature opened it's mouth and all three of them took a step back for they saw rows upon rows of teeth, two in particular looked extremely nasty. They were thin, with serrations along their edges, and looked as if they could fold out when the mouth was opened fully to become about the height of the average ponies head. It looked as if it would hunt and kill large animals with those fangs yet the body told a different story. A story that it would hunt smaller prey, in which case the size of the fangs would be absolute overkill.
"Maybe it's some kind of snake?" said Starlight in bewilderment.
"But I don't know of any snakes with arms and with such a disproportionate head to the rest of the body." replied Twilight in equal bewilderment.
"Well whatever it is, it's definetly big enough to eat us!" exclaimed Spike from behind his chair. Twilight rolled her eyes after looking at Spike's location.
"Right now it's asleep and couldn't harm a fly." said Twilight in a reassuring tone.
"But it could wake up any moment and eat us!" replied Spike with fear in his voice.
Before Twilight could try to reassure Spike again, the creature lifted up it's head and let out a bloodcurdling cry. All three of them screamed in terror as the creature's fangs unfurled from it's gaping mouth.
Both ponies and the dragon backed away in fear as the creature let out it's screech. Spike ran out of the room and both Twilight and Starlight weren't far behind. They quickly shut the door and locked it to try and trap the hostile creature in there.
"What do we do now!" panicked Spike.
"I don't even know what it is but I believe that the best course of action is to simply leave it in there until we can find out what it is." replied Twilight in a reassuring manner. This calmed down Spike a tad but not much.
"I'll go lock the other door into the room while you two go look for a book on what that thing might be." said Starlight in an urgent manner. Twilight and Spike ran as fast as they could to the library of the castle while Starlight stayed behind. As they entered the library, they both knew how difficult the task would be. Combing through every single possible book to find something on the creature, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack if it weren't for the fact that there's a spell to do exactly that.
Starlight had locked the door on the other side of the room and was about to head over to the library to help her friends when she stopped. The cry was no longer heard, what replaced it was something completly different. Starlight pressed her ear upon the door and heard what she thought was somepony mumbling to themselves. Then it stopped. The silence that Starlight heard was deafening.
Suddenly, the creature knocked on the door in a surprisingly polite manner. What happened next surprised her the most however.
"Excuse me?" said the creature in a polite and slightly shy tone with a bit of a posh accent. "Could somepony tell me why I was in a chandelier made of... tree roots... and crystals, why t-the doors are locked and why I now have opposable digits."
Twilight was reading franticly, missing an extreme amount of detail within the books she was looking at. Words that meant nothing to her flipped by her face as the pages turned. Book after book was taken from the shelves and neatly put back. Twilight looked upon the progress she had made, nearly having looked through every single book in the library, she looked back at the current book with depression. Starlight then calmly walked into the library.
"Twilight, I have found out something very interesting about our new friend." said Starlight.
"Oh there you are Starlight." said Twilight with genuine excitement in her voice. "Could you get every single book in the reference section for me." Twilight's eye's widened with this.
"No I won't because our friend here can tell us himself." said Starlight with some uncertainty in her voice. Both Spike and Twilight looked over at the creature, who was meekly holding his hands together and had a look of confusion in his eyes.
"By the dickens!" exclaimed the creature. "I thought there was only a single alicorn in all of equestria."
"Um, actually... there are five." hesitated Twilight.
"You must be joking, as if there are five alicorns now" said the creature in shock. "She is joking right?" questioned the creature in the general direction of Starlight.
"No she's not joking, but before we get off track anymore can you please tell us who and what you are?" said Starlight. The creature, however, did not hear the last part of her sentence as he was simply shocked at this revalation. "Um... can you please answer our questions." continued Starlight with nervousness.
"That can't be true!" said the creature. "Celestia is the only alicorn."
"As I said, that isn't true." said Twilight, trying to calm the creature down. "Celestia has an alicorn sister who she banished to the moon and then returned and is now ruling beside her, the ruler of the crystal empire is an alicorn and she had a baby that is also an alicorn."
"Wait, WHAT!" exclaimed the confused creature. "Since when did Celestia have a sister, when did the crystal empire return and how the dickens was there an alicorn that was born naturally!?"
"If you just calm down I can explain everything and you can have a cup of tea if you want." said Twilight in her reassuring tone of voice.
"I would like that." replied the creature more calmly.
