8 Vexing Circumstances


First off, I owe you all a big apology. I said I would be back by the 24th of August, and I wasn't. I hope you can forgive me for such a lapse in my story's progress.

Second, I'd like to thank Guest, Prince Nox, Crimson11Delight, The Random 1, Wffleman2211, Chronokeeper, and Ninjagirl01 for leaving your reviews. Even if you've forgotten about this story, I will always remember the support you've given me.


Twilight and Blizzard found themselves in the middle of a flash mob, ponies galloping this way and that, clamoring to know what was going on. Windows were being broken, flowerpots overturned. It was pure pandemonium. Here and there, ponies were shouting their theories as to what in the name of the Sun was going on.

"Ursa Major…"

"Nightmare Moon…night time eternal…"

"Run for your lives!"

"…end, save yourselves!"

Ponies ran everywhere, knocking over stalls and breaking windows. If this didn't get sorted out soon, Ponyville would be leveled. Twilight facehoofed. One of the poorer traits of ponies, in her opinion, was to panic when something unknown happened, and not find out how to fix it.

Amidst the chaos, Twilight saw something. Something she never thought she'd see any time soon. There, clad in golden armor and purple robes, were three familiar unicorn ponies, using their magic to keep the crowds contained. They all had white coats and blue eyes, two stallions and a mare. They ushered the panicking civilians back into their homes, using telekinesis if they resisted. All their spells were cast with absolute mastery, something only a well-learned mage would know how to do.

Twilight's heart leapt. Those were, without a doubt, three of Celestia's Solar Mages. Had they been sent to investigate the yellow meteor? If so, they were remarkably swift in their response. It had barely been five minutes since the meteor's appearance, and yet here they were! Celestia sure knew how to pick them.

The lavender unicorn made her way through the rabbling mass of hooves and manes, teleporting around a particularly thick gathering of ponies at one point.

"Hey!" she said, upon reaching the nearest Solar Mage. "What's going on?"

The mage glanced at her, looked away, then stared at her again. The mage slowly removed his helmet, lifting it off of his horn and putting it on the ground.

"Twilight Sparkle?" the stallion asked tentatively. His sky blue eyes widened, ignoring the rampaging around them. "Is that really you?"

Twilight had also stopped cold. No. It couldn't be…not after all those years.

"Spellbinder?" she whispered, her voice losing its potency in the shock.

The stallion took two steps toward the librarian, his silver mane rippling in the moonlight, his eyes still searching over her as though not really believing what he was seeing.

"I-I can't believe it's really you." He said. "How've you been?" the mage blushed under his white coat, his horn letting off a few errant sparks. A flowerpot crashed down next to them, but nobody paid it any attention, despite a piece of pottery embedding itself into the wall nearby.

Twilight's face mirrored the mage's expression. "Spellbinder…" she murmured, a smile breaking out on her face. "But I thought you'd been transferred to Manehattan University?"

The stallion, Spellbinder, gave Twilight a rueful grin, running a hoof through his mane embarrassedly. "Well, Twilight, long story short, I graduated, got a job, came back to serve the Princess. Things have changed, but I want you to know, I'm still-"

There was a crash from the direction of the Everfree Forest as a tree toppled down, its leaves in flames.

One of the other Solar Mages gave Spellbinder a punch on the shoulder. "Hey, Spellbinder, we're on the job here! Celestia's depending on us!"

Spellbinder stood at attention, then levitated his helmet back onto his head, his horn slipping into the accommodating hole with a snick.

"Sorry, Twilight, but I've got a job to do. I'll catch up with you later, okay? We've got a lot to talk about," said the silver maned stallion as he charged off after his two companions, who were already almost out of town.

Twilight watched them go, a small smile still stretched out on her face.

"Oh, Spellbinder," she said softly, shaking her head. "Still dyeing your mane silver I see…"

Blizzard Gale waited a full thirty seconds before poking her friend in the flank.

"Hey Twilight, you knew that guy?"

The lavender unicorn seemed to snap out of a trance. "Oh, oh yeah. We ummm…went to school together."

She went on to say more, but there was a huge flare of orange light from the forest, and a scream. Another tree came down, evicting a whole flock of birds as its trunk snapped.

"I'll explain later. We've got to get to the bottom of this."

Blizzard nodded and spread her wings, barely registering the weight of her wing guards as she and Twilight raced to the meteor's point of impact.

As they neared the crash site, her Cutie Mark began to tingle uncomfortably, the red eyes on her flank lighting up in the gloom.


The first thing that registered to Twilight was that the bridge that led out of town had been all but decimated. A few splintered planks of smoldering wood still clung to a small pile of rubble, but otherwise, there was nothing spanning the river anymore. She teleported over the bubbling brook and kept going, the dark blue pegasus hot on her hooves.

As they got even closer, Twilight could see that the meteor had gouged a trench in the ground as it had landed, leaving a deep scar in the earth. Casting her eyes further up as she ran, Twilight registered that the trench that the space rock had left was not all that big…barely bigger than a wagon. Still further up ahead was a sizeable crater, still burning with bright orange fire.

Blizzard flew a little closer to Twilight. "Wow," she gasped between wingbeats, "Who'd have thought that one meteor could do so much damage?" Her bracer glinted in the firelight, the orange light highlighting the razor-thin blade that was clipped to the underside.

Twilight was running out of breath fast, spitting out a fast "I don't know" before skidding to a halt at the edge of the crater.

Both mares gasped in dark surprise at what lay in the center.


"Necromancer to third plane, D-23." Faedran commanded, the appropriate piece sliding to the allotted place.

Grimm dipped her masked head slightly, surveying the game and her lexicon at the same time.

"Shade wraith, second plane, takes Necromancer D-23."

At the officer's command, a black, smoky piece dropped straight through the second plane and onto the third, crushing Faedran's Necromancer piece with its jaws.

Faedran hissed. "I should have seen that coming." The superior Gigas said grumpily.

Grimm waved for it to make its move.

"Oh, don't feel too bad, Faedran. At least you saw this coming…"

Both operatives stared into Grimm's lexicon, watching the action unfold…


In the center of the crater, still smoldering and smoking, was a circle of darkest black. It was so black that it seemed to absorb light, creating a void in the ground rather than a surface. In fact, it looked so much like a hole that Twilight an blizzard both jumped back when two red eyes appeared on the circle's surface.

The eyes darted from this way to that, drinking in its surroundings, then abruptly vanished.

There was the sound of galloping hooves. The mares turned to see Spellbinder and his two companions arrive from the riverbank. There was a boat on the shore, hastily moored to a riverside rock.

"Hey, you ladies got here pretty quick! How'd you deal with the bridge?" a taller stallion with rosy red eyes asked.

"They teleported, obviously," said the mare, who was readying a spell of some kind as they cautiously approached the crash site. "I told you we should have done that."

"Well without proper knowledge of the terrain, teleportation can be dangerous…"

"Not as dangerous as failing the Princess!"

"Oh come on…"

"Quiet!" Spellbinder yelled, putting his head between his two arguing teammates' faces. "And you call me amateurish at times?"

The ground shook, cracks forming in the edge of the crater and sending clods of dirt rolling toward the bottom. As all five ponies turned to look, a bolt of bright orange lightning burst from the center of the black circle and struck a nearby tree, turning part of the trunk into ash with the intensity of its heat. Twilight and company flinched as the massive tree swayed, then crashed into the ground, scattering leaves and branches everywhere.

Spellbinder's rosy-eyed compatriot tried to douse the flaming wood with water from the stream, but the otherworldly fire seemed to absorb the water, growing in both intensity and temperature.

Even as the fire spread, so did the black circle, doubling in diameter. The red eyes appeared once again, scanning the area before locking onto another tree, one right behind Blizzard Gale.

Twilight knew what was going to happen, but even as she began to conjure a shield, the eyes vanished, and a bolt of orange lightning surged from the center of the black circle, forking right at the airborne pegasus.

Spellbinder's horn lit up like a torch, the strength of his spell forcing him to screw up his eyes. The fallen trunk of the last tree jumped forward, blocking the lightning bolt, while another mage yanked Blizzard out of the way and clear of the wood shrapnel.

Twilight was at her friend's side, pulling the stunned pony to her hooves. The female mage surveyed the black circle, which had now almost spread to the top of the crater. Her light blue tail swished as she calculated what to do.

"What's your plan, Jinx?" The rosy-eyed stallion asked, taking his place at her side.

Jinx glanced at him, a sly smile forming under her helmet. "How about we give that black hole a little lightning of our own?"

"I hear you. Hey, miss!" The stallion galloped over to Blizzard, who was shaking her head, getting leaves out of her mane. "I know you're a little dazed, but we need your help." Blizzard nodded, still preening her mane with her clawed bracer. "We need you to find the biggest cloud in the sky, and get it back here. Can you do that?"

He had barely finished his instructions when Blizzard Gale shot off into the sky, wings beating furiously.

"Good girl." Spellbinder said. To the rest, he shouted, "All right everypony! Grab something and try to block the next lightning strike! Come on, double time!" As he yelled, he seized a boulder from nearby and held it at the edge of the crater, watching the center.

Twilight found herself next to her old classmate. He was not as big and tall as Shining Armor, but he looked like soldier just the same.

He glanced down at her and grinned. "Not the kind of reunion I was expecting." He muttered to her.

"What, you actually wanted to see me again?" quipped the lavender mare as she readied a plank of wood from the bridge.

Spellbinder looked pained. "Twilight, it's not like that. I wanted to write, but…"

"Get ready!" Jinx hollered. Sure enough, the red eyes were back, gazing at a tree to Twilight's left. Once again, the orange lightning stabbed out, but this time, it was intercepted by a boulder and a plank of wood, blasting the items to dust but leaving the tree unharmed.

The two unicorns quickly grabbed new pieces of detritus to use as shields.

"Good work, Twilight. But then, you always were top of your grade."

"Hey, you did great too, Spellbinder."


Blizzard Gale dashed from cloud to cloud, searching for the biggest one there was. Unfortunately, it was a pretty clear night, and there was hardly a cloud to be seen, only wispy tufts of white cotton drifting on the wind.

"Oooh." She fretted. "Back home in Cloudsdale, there'd be plenty of clouds…"

Suddenly, the pegasus stopped flying, losing a few meters of altitude before her body caught up to her mind.

Home. That gave her an idea.


"Ugh…we're running out of shield material!" the rosy eyed mage called over. "We need that cloud, and fast!"

Another lightning bolt disintegrated a pile of dirt that had been hastily piled in front of the crater. Indeed, the mage spoke true. There wasn't a whole lot left in the area but dust and ashes, and nopony dared to run off to grab more debris.

Then suddenly, the moonlight that shone over the whole scene was blocked out. Blocked out by the biggest, thickest looking thundercloud anypony had seen.

Which also happened to be Blizzard Gale's cloud house.

The pegasus in question waved a hoof at them. "Sorry I took so long!"

Jinx nodded. "Put the cloud over the crater! Quickly!" Another blast of orange electricity arced past the mare's horn, singeing her helmet.

Dutifully, Blizzard pushed her house over the impact area, then flew out of the way.

Spellbinder and his two fellows nodded to each other, each of their horns glowing with power as they readied their magic. As one, they shot three beams of clear green light at the cloud house. The thundercloud rumbled, the spell working its magic inside.

There was a blinding flash and an earsplitting crack as a lightning bolt, pure white, zapped down from the cloud and into the crater, striking the middle of the black circle.

Twilight, Blizzard, and the rest of the Solar Mages were flung away by the shockwave, landing in the grass nearby, dazed. Spellbinder pulled himself up and rushed to Twilight's aid.

"Hey, Twilight! You okay?" he asked as he dusted her off.

"I'm fine, Spellbinder." She replied, trotting back to the crater. The black circle was still there, but no more lightning was shooting out.

Instead, the ground began to shake. Loose dirt fell into the center, but vaporized when it touched the circle. Black vapor began to rise from the dark disk, forming into something much, much taller.

Eyes of bright orange, rimmed with violet. Massive draconic wings, smoky but still somehow solid. And a dark, shadowy maw, dripping with noxious black gases.

"At lasssttt…" it hissed.


Spike tossed and turned in his little bed. He couldn't sleep, no matter what position he tried.

"Uhh. Maybe I need a snack." The baby dragon suggested.

Climbing out of bed, Spike walked over to the shelf where he knew Twilight kept a stash of gems. Wheeling over a stepladder, the dragonling was soon opening the box and fishing around for a gemstone. He little claws closed on an egg-shaped emerald.

Placing the box back where he had found it, Spike descended back to the library floor, wheeling the stepladder back to its original location. Surely Twilight would understand if he had just a little snack before going to bed?

As he went back to his bed, chewing on the emerald, Spike felt something tap him on the shoulder.

He turned around. "Hey Twilight, you're back early…you're not Twili-"

The baby dragon's view was full of blue sparks for an instant, then he saw no more.


Author's Notes

Grimm's plan begins, and Vex has made her move.

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