Children of the Night
Chapter 1
The castle guard had been set up outside. Something terrible is coming. Glittering stain-glass windows blurred at the edge of Luna's vision as she raced through the corridor, her gallops clicking on the marble floor. She hadn't been able to control the moon lately, not that the stars were already enough to deal with. To add to her worry, the princess' sister, Celestia, had not been able to raise the sun either.
The dark Alicorn burst through a large purple door with a sun and moon cut in the center to see her sister writing in their diary. Celestia looked up worriedly.
"Sister," Luna panted, "we must take action on whatever is threatening Equestria."
The white pony shook her head sadly. "No, we do not know what is threatening us. We cannot take action on an imaginary enemy."
Luna twitched her ears. "Are you sure? Can we at least figure out why the sky is half day and night? Can we try and read up on what is happening, why my power… I mean, our power is no longer working?" She searched her sister's expression desperately for some sort of a determined look, but found none.
"Well, it's funny you should ask that," she began hesitantly, "I have been studying on strange weather patterns, but nothing about half day and half night. Though, I did come across this," The princess used her magic to lift an old, dusty book. It was red with gold manuscript printed over top. "Magical Creatures, while I was looking for spells to put back what had been afflicted. Anyway, I flipped through a couple pages, saw nothing, then turned to the back of the book where it looked like another page had been added in and found this."
Luna nearly fell over from leaning so much. The picture in the book had shown a strange creature with a defined head and a dear antler along with a wavy Unicorn like horn perched on top. To add on to the unfamiliarity, the creature also possessed a long, snake tail creeping out of the tall brown body that feathered up into grey for its' neck and head. The arms and legs were all different things. The creature's left arm was an eagle claw, while the other was a lion paw, and the right leg was a dragon leg as the other was a cloven hoof. What surprised her most was the background. It was half day, half night. Everything around it was chaotic, such as upside-down homes, soap roads, and cotton candy chocolate milk clouds.
"What is that?" The dark blue princess gasped.
"That's what I wanted to know." Celestia sighed. "So I read farther down. Apparently, this creature is called a Draconequess and is referred to as the Lord of Chaos, or Master of Chaos. This dreadful creature brings chaos across all Equestria and one of the signature things he does is disrupt the sky." She stopped. "I know you thought that this was happening because Star-Swirl the Bearded died performing his destiny spell, but it is not. Also, notice the way it was written down." Luna leaned closer and smelled the paper. "It's new. As in, written in the last few days… it almost makes me think maybe Star-Swirl made a new discovery before he… well, you know."
"Yes," Luna agreed, "it does seem that way. So then do you think that we should look for the Draconequess?"
"Look for me?" a voice suddenly spoke up. Luna fought to keep herself from screaming out loud, keeping her muscles tensed and eyes locked ahead. "Oh, there's no need to do that when I'm right here…"
"Show yourself!" Celestia cried out.
Luna tried desperately to search for words that would match her sister's, something to help her with her disguised challenge, but nothing came.
The voice scoffed. "And why would I do that? Really, Celestia, I would think that even the princess would have more wisdom."
"H-how do you know my name?" she gasped.
"Oh, I know much more than you think." It laughed. "Though, now that we're being formal, I suppose I could tell you my name. I am called Discord."
Celestia bared her teeth. "We command you!"
Discord seemed to gasp. "We! Of course! Luna, I almost forgot about you, the underestimated one. Really though, I would think your sister would pay you more attention, that your subjects would notice your night…"
The princess gasped. "W-what are you talking about?" Even though she knew what he said was a lie, she couldn't help but feel a stab of pain at his sharp words.
"Ugh, please, don't kid yourself," Discord scoffed, "you're not fooling me."
With a terrifying flash the creature materialized in the center of the room. His one fang glinted in the half-light showing through the small window on the left wall.
The Draconequess roared in laughter. "You should see the looks on your faces, priceless!"
"Equestria belongs to us!" Luna broke out in her Royal We speech. "Thou hast no right to our land. We demand that thy surrender it forth to its' rightful rulers!"
Discord pretended to look afraid. "Oh no! What are you going do, dear princess?"
"We shall vanquish thee!" she blasted the creature with her horn, only to have him disappear in a flash. Luna turned back to her sister who was sitting in shock. "What are we meant to do?"
Celestia shook her head. "I do not know. But…" The white Alicorn princess stood and turned towards the door. "I have an idea."
Princess Luna followed her through the right hallway and down the left stairs. The dank scent of decay rose to her nostrils as the plunged into basement library. Nopony had used it since it was built.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
Celestia did not answer, but kept on trotting. She walked past history, fiction, and facts and broke into a gallop down the magic isle. Confused, Luna followed her sister past spells and creatures to objects.
The princess illuminated the room when her horn lit up and lifted a book called The Tree of Harmony. "I knew it was here. I asked the work ponies to put it in when I heard about it because it simply fascinated me." Celestia flipped through the pages and stopped about a fourth of the way through the book. "Ah-ha, here. The Elements of Harmony," she read, "powerful objects this infamous tree holds that stand for the six elements which make up a world of harmony. Generosity, Honesty, Kindness, Loyalty, Laughter, and Magic are those things. They all, used together, could repel any magic otherwise." Celestia fixed her sister with a hard stare. "This is what we need! And is shows a picture, right here," she pointed with her hoof, "at where it's located. We can find it! I know those trees!"
Luna hopped up excitedly. "Good. Should we go now?"
Celestia nodded determinedly. "Yes."
The trek through the forest had been hard. Luna stubbed her hooves at least three times each on trailing brambles, briar thickets, and tree roots. Overhead, the sky was still messed up while more and more things started to appear, for at one point Luna saw fish swimming in mid-air and cave-man squirrels. Ugh, who can live like this!? She thought disgusted.
When they finally stopped, Luna groaned to see a cliff drop onto a stone floor below.
"Seriously?" she complained.
Celestia laughed a little. "Yes, seriously. Now, use your teleportation spell to get down there, from the looks of it, we're going in that cave." She jerked her head towards a dip in the cliff walls.
Concentrating, she powered her horn and in a flash opened her eyes at the bottom of the gorge. Celestia appeared beside her and padded excitedly forward. Forcing herself onward, she followed.
When they reached the cave, Luna narrowed her watering eyes because of the light. Finally she adjusted and opened them, astounded at the sight.
"I-is that," she murmured disbelievingly, "the tree of harmony?"
Wordlessly, Celestia flew up and used her magic to open a star-shaped vault in the center. On each branch of the tree rested a different colored gem. There were six in all, including the gem that sat in the vault.
"Are you sure?" Luna called, flying to meet her sister.
Celestia nodded. "We have discovered the only means by which we can defeat Discord, and free the citizens of Equestria." She lifted all of the gems until she held them out in front of her. "Even without these elements, the Tree of Harmony will possess a powerful magic. It will be able to control and contain all that grows here."
"Alright then," Luna said, "let us go forth and defeat this creature of chaos!"
When the two sisters reached the edge of the forest, they came across a small town named Ponyville. It looked the worst. With pink and purple checkered grass, soap roads, the town hall building floating upside-down in the air, flying pigs, ballerina bears, card houses, and cotton candy chocolate mild filled clouds raining down on everything.
Luna gasped. "This is awful!"
Her sister nodded solemnly and galloped into the village. Racing through the town, she noticed random black, scratchy weeds trying to block their path. She and Celestia both were scratched several times. Luna almost hurled herself at Celestia when she stopped in the middle of her tracks. Staring up in fear Celestia backed away. Confused at why she was acting this way, Luna looked up. That's when she saw it.
Sitting on a red throne, a pony skull engraved on the head, Discord sat with an evil, triumphant smile wiped across his face. He roared in laughter every time a pie fell from the sky, or a pony got hit with a flying pig.
Much to Luna's dislike, he started speaking. "Oh, this is so much fun! How about a game of pin the tail on the pony?" He lifted his lion paw and in it he held Celestia's pink, blue, and green tail.
Celestia gasped and looked at her rump to see that her tail wasn't there. "Playtime is over for you, Discord!" she called, trotting towards him and clearly forgetting her fear.
"Oh, I doubt that," he flicked his eagle claw. In his lion paw he clutched a bag of what looked like seeds, but was eating them. He shivered as he ate them and said, "Hungry?"
The tiny black orbs dropped on the princess's noses and on the ground. At her signal Luna pulled out three of the Elements of Harmony while Celestia pulled out the rest.
Discord dropped his seed sack. "Ooh! What have you got there?"
"The Elements of Harmony," Celestia grinned triumphantly.
"With them, we shall defeat you!" Luna added.
Discord laughed. "You… you should see yourselves right now! The expressions on your faces, so intense, so sure of yourselves… Ahahaha!"
Celestia and Luna wielded the elements using their purest intentions and they cast a spell, igniting the crystals. A large rainbow shot from a magical bubble forming around them and came down on Discord. Right in the middle of the Draconequess' laughter, he transformed to stone. A light so bright emitted itself from the stone and filled all of Equestria, blinding the princesses temporarily.
A loud ringing sounded in Luna's ears and she collapsed, only to wake moments later. The world around her was not chaotic, but it was no better. Several houses had been blasted to smithereens, while many trees were bare and only parts of the grass were green.
After a while Celestia piped up, "That was terrible."
"Yes…" Luna murmured. Oh, how she wished so badly she could help her subjects!
"Come sister," Celestia prompted her, "we must return home. Our work is done here."