The shows My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Jackie Chan Adventures and any characters from either of these are the copyrighted property of their respective owners. Neither of those owners is me.
Hello again everypony! This one took longer than I expected since I got an idea for another story partway through and took a detour to write down some notes in case I forget the idea later. If things go according to plan, the next update after this one should be fairly quick so we can get the adventure part of this adventure rolling. As for how the ponies will deal with Shendu without chi magic, I have an idea in mind for that!
My Little Pony: Zodiac Adventures
Chapter One: Rising Darkness
A few months had passed since the Grand Galloping Gala, and the sun was shining high in the sky like it should. Among the clouds, in a carriage drawn by two white pegasus ponies in golden armor, sat a light purple unicorn mare with a star on her flank and a bright pink strip running through her dark purple mane and tail. Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic, and ever diligent and faithful student of Princess Celestia of Equestria was currently on a trip back to Canterlot. Reaching into her saddlebag, Twilight produced the scroll she had received early that morning with her summons from the Princess. She had been sincerely surprised when Spike suddenly burped up a letter while she and the baby dragon were brushing their teeth that morning. It took her only a moment to compose herself to give the letter from her mentor its due priority and with a soft glow from her horn, she went off to read in more appropriate settings. Spike remained in the bathroom staring at his toothbrush, which now more closely resembled a burnt out matchstick, in frustration for a few moments longer before hurrying along behind her.
"Dear Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. It has been nearly half a year since the defeat of Discord, yet it still feels like it hasn't been nearly long enough. As such, I truly wish I did not have to bring such poor news. It has recently come to my attention that a new source of Disharmony may be on the rise somewhere in Equestria. I know the past few months have been busy for you in Ponyville, but your presence is requested in Canterlot immediately. By the time you receive this message, a carriage drawn by members of my personal guard will already be on its way to retrieve you, expect them shortly. We shall speak more in person my faithful student. Signed, Princess Celestia of Equestria."
Twilight Sparkle put the scroll back into her bag and remained silent for a moment, looking at the sky around her as the carriage flew. She knew there had been some unusual happenings lately, even by Ponyville's admittedly unusual standards. Ghastly Gorge had been having frequent rockslides lately, and the strange creatures that lived within had been more aggressive lately. There had been far more accidents around Ponyville lately, a dam that had never shown any signs of weakening suddenly breaking. Construction sites that were built with the upmost planning for safety were suddenly coming down for seemingly no reason. Baby unicorns and pegasi were manifesting their abilities much earlier than was normal recently. The Zap Apples that the Apple Family was famous for began to appear without the howling of the Timber Wolves that always heralded it, and when Big Macintosh and Applejack went to check, they found dead and destroyed lumber vaguely in the shape of wolves scattered throughout the forest. For one particularly scary month, instances of dragons rampaging had spiked up dramatically, culminating in Spike himself suddenly turning into a greedy monster for a short while. Then just as suddenly as they'd started going berserk, all the dragons within Equestrian borders just seemed to disappear, Twilight was terrified she'd wake up one morning to find Spike had vanished in the night but thankfully that never happened. Perhaps the most unusual was the claims from all around Equestria of strange creatures nopony had ever seen before. Ditzy Doo, the mailmare had even claimed to get a good look at a group of them! Having been out early for her route, she'd been shocked to see what she claimed looked like a group of 12 strange jet-black ponies with no manes or tails and bright red eyes that ran on only their hind legs leaping from roof to roof and in some cases slipping in and out of houses without a sound. The Cakes had been especially frightened when Ditzy swore up and down that she'd seen one slip in and out of the upstairs windows of their home and shop where the foals' room was.
Twilight Sparkle was brought out of her thoughts as the carriage bumped and shook slightly on landing. She looked up at the high doors that led to the main hall of Canterlot Castle, before picking up her pack, throwing it over her back and trotting up to the slowly opening double doors. Something was going on in Equestria and it had Princess Celestia worried, as her faithful student, Twilight would do whatever it took to help!
"WELCOME TWILIGHT SPARKLE! WE ARE PLEASED THAT THOU COULD JOIN US ON SUCH SHORT NOTICE!"
Twilight had to brace herself to keep from sliding right back out the door from the sudden force of the "Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice", a task made harder by how smooth and polished the floor of the main hall was. "Ah! We…I mean…I apologize Twilight Sparkle, perhaps I let my nerves get the best of me since my dear sister discovered it missing." Twilight allowed her ears to flip back up slowly and opened her eyes, relaxing her posture from when she was trying to keep from being blown away as she looked up at the dark alicorn at the top of the stairs who'd spoken. "It's quite all right Princess Luna…" She said, a little more weakly than she would've liked. "It's good to see you again!" The princess of the night gave Twilight a genuinely friendly, if somewhat worried smile in return as she descended the steps. "Likewise, now please follow me. My sister awaits you in the Sculpture Garden." Twilight quickly followed Princess Luna as she trotted at a slightly hurried pace out of the palace and to the garden, Twilight having to put forth a little more effort to keep up with the taller pony's longer stride.
Twilight followed the Princess through the garden, as she looked at the familiar statues and nearby hedge maze, she recognized the path they were on and for a moment worried that she was about to find that Discord was free again, but soon enough the statue of the draconequus came into sight and Luna passed it by with no more than a passing glare, Twilight following close behind. The all but galloped, well Twilight was galloping, down the winding paths before suddenly veering off into a barely visible dirt path into a side entrance of the hedge maze. This portion of the maze had no twists or turns, just a single straight path lined by hedges that grew more and more unkempt as they went deeper until finally they entered a small clearing all but completely consumed with creeping vines. In the center were two blocks of white stone, one with the sun engraved into every face, and another with the moon engraved only on the front, and standing beside these two blocks was Princess Celestia. Twilight stopped for a moment as Princess Luna trotted up to join her sister. It'd been a while since Twilight had seen Luna and Celestia together and she was momentarily struck by how similar the two looked now that Luna was regaining her powers. She watched their manes flow in some unknown breeze for a moment as Luna spoke to Celestia and then Celestia turned to Twilight and gave her a smile. "Twilight Sparkle, my dear student, thank you for coming." Twilight could clearly see the worry in the princess' eyes. "Of course Princess, please, tell me what's wrong." Celestia nodded quietly. "Of course, perhaps I should start at the beginning." With that, the princess' horn began to glow with magic and Twilight's sight went white. As the princess spoke, Twilight saw images pass before her eyes.
"It was a little over one thousand five hundred years ago, in a time when Canterlot was nothing more than an empty valley at the base of a mountain. Luna and I had found the Elements of Harmony and used them to seal Discord away in stone. For years, we remained near the statue, guarding it incase Discord showed signs of escaping, as we did, peace began to replace the chaos of Discord's reign in Equestria. One night, as I watched Luna raise the moon from a hill near what is now the center of the royal hedge maze; a strange light lit up the sky and from it dropped a statue of yellow stone and twelve small stones. Neither me nor my sister knew what the statue was nor where it had come from, but we could sense ancient evil magic deep within. In order to understand what had appeared in Equestria, Luna and I cast a spell to peek into the statue's past." At these words, Twilight saw the princess's in an empty field at night, bending over a strange coiling statue with their horns alight with magic. "We glimpsed into another world, one long oppressed by evil. We saw demons and conflict, tyranny and uprising, villainy…and heroism. "Here Twilight saw thousands of creatures flying through strange skies chasing strange bipedal creatures fleeing for their lives in terror from magic fueled by evil. She saw eight of these fleeing creatures stand up and fight back. The monsters were driven back by strange magic that Twilight couldn't begin to understand; eventually these heroes stood before eight terrible monsters and using a strange box, seven of the monsters were banished while the last fled. She saw fire and shadowy beings as the remaining monster conquered and enslaved a land for what she understood to be centuries. Finally a hero stood up to it again, and using its magic, separated the monster from the twelve small stones from which it drew its powers and turned the monster to stone itself before banishing it from their world. "When we saw what kind of creature had appeared in our world, Luna and I acted quickly. Before the monster could wake and begin to attempt to bring darkness to an Equestria still recovering from Discord's reign, we used the Elements of Harmony to further seal the monster in eternal sleep. We bound it to one stone which I enchanted with a spell that would make sure nopony would ever draw near it and potentially set it free. Luna bound the small stones we learned it drew its power to another, enchanted with a spell that would scatter them across Equestria should any disturb them." Twilight blinked to clear her eyes as her vision returned, slowly she could make out the two princess ponies in front of her, her mentor's head hanging as if in shame. After a moment, Princess Luna continued where her sister left off. "We were careless, when Discord's seal was broken we should've had you and your friends reseal the demon as well. For months we've been feeling an evil magic growing somewhere in Equestria, but we never thought…" Luna hung her head as well, shaking it slightly, seemingly angry with herself. "Twilight Sparkle, we learned from the demons memories so many years ago that its original seal would not break unless the twelve "talismans" from which it drew its powers were returned to the twelve slots in the statue." Princess Celestia spoke up suddenly, lifting her head and meeting eyes with Twilight. "I ask for your aid, my faithful student, seek out and guard these talismans so that the demon cannot revive while Luna and I seek the demon itself out!"
And there's the first part! Hope you like it. Please leave a comment! I'd love to hear some feedback!
