Chapter 27: Mysterion


"Sunset, is this what I think it is?

"Honestly, Starlight, I think so."

"It changed." Starlight Glimmer's awe laden whisper had barely disturbed the magic-infused void as the strange world very literally unfolds before them. Both mares stand in silence surrounded by the cyan bubble of Starlight's arcane forging. But neither expected that the route through the mirror to a worried but resplendent Celestia, would result in them looking for Twilight and Luna, and end with what felt like staring down on a city inside a dark nebulae from an invisible mountain. But it was how the past couple of days were panning out regardless.

Worse yet, from the moment they'd stepped hoof through the mirror, there was the overwhelming sensation of being watched from a distance.

Sunset stares down in almost utter silence, momentarily stupified. Her mouth hangs agape at the image before them as she numbly plods along their pathway, suspended like a meandering glass catwalk over the yawning abyss. The massive structure below them wasn't just one city, but eight; like the radial points of a compass, with was like a city though it stretches out in every direction and in every way. All of the spurs radiate from one central point. Great tines stretching out and folding against the plain euclidean geometries of any real township. Some great hallways in great tomb-complexes unfold like sandstone dominoes, constantly refolding and changing direction. Others swirl and curve, seeming to belly then split under their own prodigious weight as ancient early-modern architecture of townhouses and towering urban sprawl twists in subtle curves like sagging leaves in a rainstorm.

Utterly enormous, they spread along two axis, four points on each, and one concentric ring in the center apart from the rest. But at its crimson core, beats a single infernal heart that shines with a hellish glow. The whole unfathomable labyrinth swirls in the middle of a hypnotizing whirlpool of a cosmic nebulae. It was quite different than the roiling wall of blackness that the solar diarch lanced with an incandescent ray to allow them entrance.

"This is like something out of a Mareis Etcher painting." Starlight muses aloud while cocking her head to the side to view the whole scene from another angle.

Sunset lofts a brow with a sigh, evidently glad for the distraction, "Did she do the ones with the melting clocks too?"

Starlight shakes her head, "No. That was Salvador Dolly."

"Right." Sunset smiles a bit, tearing her eyes off the bewildering and assuredly impossible three dimensional maze still expanding in eight directions before her eyes. She focuses on the barely seen, or rather barely perceived path. Almost immediately she had felt the chilly absence of anything, discovering a black pathway winding like a vein in a rather obtuse and round-about way within the twisting labyrinth.

And just as suddenly, the smell of copper and the faint prick of fur on the nape of her neck sends a shiver through her. Something, somewhere, was definitely watching them. The scent of cloying perfume wafts back, speeding her heart and lending a certain loose speed to her tongue. "This is a lot like if you looked down at the city back home from Sagehen mountain through one of those ten dollar crystals you buy at the museum." Sunset offers trying not to look around, trying not to turn, hoping that the soft tap of hoof falls echoing in her ears was just her and Starlight's echo reverberating around the inside of their transparent shield. She didn't even really notice the lofted brow from her new companion.

"Sorry. I got to go to a few museums and exhibits, but unless it's with Rarity, Twilight or Trixie kinda make exploring the gift shop afterward a little problematic. One always wants something and the other has something better planned or gets hooked on something and obsesses over it." Starlight explains, still not managing to really look away from the immensity of eight massive tracks of sprawling territory. "Bet you can guess who, right?"

"Yeah." Sunset chortles, but the dry nervous chatter of teeth and constant swivel of her ears catches Starlight's attention. A flash of purple snaps the fiery Unicorn's attention back over her shoulder.

"Sunset," she reaches out and gives the brightly coloured Unicorn a pat on her withers, "It's alright. I got your back." She gestures to the bubble stretched around them both, "This frustrated Twilight for quite some time, It'll hold up to whatever's out here, too. We aren't dead yet. And we trotted through a black wall of squirming hideous monsters-"

"That Celestia blasted with a sunbe-ray" Sunset stammers, twitching for a second before licking her lips. "But yeah, yeah I know."

"We'll find them." Starlight nods, "Or, rather you will. Right?"

The empathic Unicorn nods as they walk the perilous pathway, "Absolutely. Even if we have to wander that maze shouting Luna and Twilight's names like in one of Grim's fairytales."

"Honestly, both of them tend to make a splash wherever they go." Starlight smiles, trotting a little further down the winding black path as it curves inward towards two of the expanding planes. "They aren't the most subtle po-"

The crimson heart at the centre pulses once, catching the eye as sure as an exploding star. Both mares halt as one of the nearest tines, a sandstone series of corridors forming switchbacks that fold inward, suddenly stops. And with a strange base note that rattles through the void with a resonant sonic thrum.

The sandstone corridors explode into puffs of rapidly dispersing red mist, leaving a single sparkle of blue light hanging in the ether.


The vulture-like monster Anix crouches before her like a malnourished toad. His hand still clutches the skull-topped cane, virulent black and green mists pouring from empty sockets as his own eyes dance in a maleficent cavalcade of kaleidoscopic colours. The book still calls to her, the book of secrets, the book that had started her down the path to becoming the princess she was now.

Predictions and Prophecies lay open on the table, its colourful illustration of the worlds set out before her. Her own soft grey hoof rests on well preserved pages of parchment as she tried to deny what she'd learned, and to know more about the possibilities. She draws a ragged breath, eyes enraptured as she stares at a picture of herself on a throne of gold with arcing streams of light illuminating her to the starry heavens.

Anix's voice whispers, no longer from an avian beak but a soft distortion of the magic-laden air around her in his placid purr. "You search for the once-fallen Princess of Night, and now-fallen Son of Man. Luna, once again, seeks change. She aligns herself with a consort of tremendous power. But make no mistake, Little Star, they are agents of change. Not chance. It is foreseen. After all, look at them."

A wisp of purple flame flickers to life In the palm of his scaled talons. Amid the shadows cast by grotesque firelight, she spots the fellow Alicorn. And at once, Twilight takes a breath. Luna disappears through whirring clouds of inky black smoke amid the crumbling ruins of an unfathomable city, while mountainous shapes plummet from the blood red skies. She sweeps and slices with her legendary halberd, a sight seen only in mystic texts. Teeth clenched, eyes ablaze, the midnight black avatar crowned in a corona of dread purple light, sweeps out with a vengeful speed almost too fast to follow. Her opponent, a mass of red shadows and flickering flame, blurs as it streaks across what view she had.

The world shifts, and Twilight spots another being she had never laid eyes upon. There, silhouetted against a monolithic slitted eye on a raised dais of crenelated obsidian, is a human. Or, at least, something remarkably close to a human if stretched to absurd proportions. Muscled and positively massive, clad in plates of jet, he radiates supreme power. The bald head only draws more attention to the stern glower and golden eyes that sparkle with a glimmer of madness. His taloned hand clasps the broken body of a golden warrior, lifting him up to see his face one last time.

She can see the rage, the power, the unfettered dark majesty in them both. Dark. In the dark...

'Dark... magic...'

'Twilight!' a tiny voice whispers in her mind. 'Twilight Sparkle!' a second familiar and insistent voice calls as if from behind a wall.

Twilight's eyes snap as wide as saucers as she pulls her gaze from the tome. A forked black tongue shows every time the vulture spirit speaks in its rickety warbling voice. But now it was heard through unmistified ears.

The inferno of black magic spews off the creature. It radiates power in toxic waves that grip her stomach as he speaks in that same rusty, foul scraping noise. But she had to endure. Even now, her mind stretches out as she grasps for one little sensation.

"They are the warrior gods; like the bonfire that blazes, and blazes, until the fuel is gone. They too will be spent when their purposes are fulfilled. It is not just their nature, they were made that way. And while, for now, they are in ascendance, all things rise and fall. It is the nature of change. You are subtle, but everlasting. And as such, it is not a fate you have to claim, just one that you have to acknowledge. It is all inevitable. You are to be no little candle who will write a single book to be forgotten, you shall direct all the heavens and all the earths into a new day."

The worlds in the palm of his hand flicker, and Twilight is already vaguely aware of the solidified maelstrom's renewed sluggish rotation. Slowly, it begins to twist into the beginnings of a violent storm.

"All of them," Anix purrs, a grin plastered across his hooked beak. "In this, we and the Ancients are in agreement: Equus was never your ultimate destiny. Ponykind was meant to inherit in the wake of the cataclysm to come. It was meant to ascend."

Twilight blinks a moment more. So few ponies thought of the lands outside their hometown, or beyond Canterlot, that it struck her as odd. Foalish. Funny, almost.

But seeing the perplexed expression, the avian clicks his tongue and smirks. "We wish for life, life unrestrained and abundant. Some have called that disruptive, chaotic. And the title they fixed upon us, We appropriated. We are Chaos. Us, the False Fifth in the Discordant prince, We are one." the creature meshes his talons together.

But he smiles, then nods as Twilight carefully studies his face. "Ponykind was the hope of the old order. When Chaos found man, we were there at its inception. We were there in its cradle. 'Anathema' could not kill us, for he stole from us, then bound himself to mankind far too late. Far too readily. He cannot see what festers inside when he, himself, thinks his work so fundamentally perfect. His sons, his so imperfect sons, are the agents of the future. And Luna is bound to the Bright Morning Star, the Luciferian Son. You shall see what she has decided, Princess. In her heart, she already has done as such. Remember that at the end of the day: what you will see is no mistake. For few remind her so much of herself in such dreadfully equal measure. But even now 'they' hope to set Nightfall and the Bright Morning Star against the Primordial powers. Yes, we are unassailable; but they hope. They hope to loose the Wolf of Ash and Fire, to unleash the Lupercal's wrath upon the stars."

He sighs and gives her a rather convincing look of displeasure.

"That title, at least, is not poetic or prophetic, Twilight. He is a hellhound, an animal of purest devastation who has razed ten thousand worlds and set trillions on the pyres to blaze for a thousand times a thousand years. If they had their way, then his war shall become the Long War. The last war. He will burn the galaxy to ash and leave only cinders, and none will be alive to tell the tale when the last lights go out."

The creature unfurls his wings and edges forward, crawling on all fours and setting his claws against the table edge. Twilight nearly leans away from the swaying head as it finally leans across the table... and she's only just aware that despite how large he looked, the creature's skull was at least the size of the nine-sided fixture itself.

"Ponykind was meant to sweep up the broken refuse that remained when those flames finally died. But now... now they can ascend. Where mankind is fuel, Ponykind can be the engine to contain it, to focus it, to channel it into something magnificent. Into something better. You are that first agent of change, Twilight Sparkle. I don't ask for your decision now... only that you consider what I say. As a gift, I will even tell you how to leave Sicarus, and give you the means to do so. You may come and go here as you please, unmolested and unrestrained. All you have to do, is consider it. You are no longer some Little Star, but the guide of the heavens, the Evening Star."

Twilight looks up, eyes searching the swirling pools of liquid eldritch magic. Her voice comes out raspy, but far more steady than she suspected. "Your words are poison."

In a flash of disorienting light, the Alicorn tears herself from existence in a flash and a familiar 'bamf'. The shifting walls give way to the ramshackle alleyways as well as the familiar rattle-crack and stamp of a rickety cart. The Alicorn reels sideways from the sudden disorientation and swings her head drunkenly around, splashing down in the sickly mire now clinging to her hooves.

She spots the hobbling cart pulled by the ghastly abominations, and sees the old brass bell hanging from the frayed rope on the back. Magic positively radiates from the simple fixture and leaves little lines trailing in its wake. Conjuring up a beam of magic, she lets it loose and strikes the bell as the screeching howl of something foul washes over her from behind.

The bell crumbles with a long dull peel, and the world shatters. The few cohesive scraps eddy into a dull grey morass as it fades into a single black abyssal plane amid the screeching caw of ravens.


"PRINCESS TWILIGHT!"

All was the whirling scream of hurricane winds and whipping specks of dust. It rakes at Twilight's fur, tossing her mane and snapping at her hooves. Like being engulfed in a river of pure noise, she tumbles and curls up on herself as she tries to project the barrier spell again. But a familiar shock of fiery hues all but invades Twilight's senses, a scent of cinnamon, and a feeling of familiarity. Her body goes limp, and she blinks watery eyes as the apparition forms; turning from what must have been a figment of her imagination to something far more real.

"Twilight!" Hooves wrap around her, then a wing. A pair of aqua eyes stare into hers, appearing as if by magic. And before the Alicorn could the pieces together when a second deeper voice echoes in the swirling maelstrom of sound.

"Oh my Celestia, Twilight! Are you okay?!" A second set of hooves wraps around her from the side. Twilight glimpses soft mauve fur and feels the press of a pony's cheek to her own as she's enveloped in warmth.

"We must hurry, Empathy." A third, far colder and somewhat laboured voice intones from nearby, "I fear they know our plans. They will attempt to stop us." The Lunar princess stands with her back to the trio, eyes darting every which way for other shapes beyond the glittering arcane barrier.

A crackle of lightning and chime of magic, and the formless void beneath them boils outward to reveal a narrow obsidian path through the screeching wall of darkness. Sunset Shimmer looks up from embracing her shivering friend to glance in the direction of the continued path. It felt like a long way as Twilight lets out a pitiful groan, ears flickering by reflex. She'd seen it more than a few times, or something close, when Rainbow Dash took a hard hit on the field. AJ said she collected concussions like Big Mac collects stamps. It wasn't particularly kind, but the groggy murmur was remarkably similar. Sunset Shimmer takes a few unsteady breaths, but enfolds Twilight in a firm and unyielding hug. Starlight Glimmer looks up from the other side of their Alicorn friend, her horn sparking but eyes reflecting the same worry.

Only dimly did Twilight find herself aware that the wing was connected to two other beings. The dark Alicorn paces like a caged lion. Luna's relentless prowling and sharp tail flicks were leagues different than the pair of calm Unicorns sandwiching her between them. But for all the world, the princess was a vigilant guardian, circling, ears pivoting. And wherever she moved, the darkness would shrink back. It wasn't the same as the steady rhythm of twin heartbeats attuning themselves to hers, but it was a kind of comfort to see the imposing princess of the night, mane sparkling with ribbons of nebulae and streaking bands of comets.

"We need a minute, Princess." Starlight pleads while enfolding Twilight in a fresh hug with her chin pressed to the back of her neck.

Sunset's own barrel steadily rises and falls in tandem with her friends, regulating both in some synchronization. "Deep breaths, deep. It's okay, we're here now. You're safe."

Twilight hadn't thought she was emotional, and she certainly didn't think she was on the verge of a breakdown, but tears sprang up from some hidden wellspring. After a little hiccup, a few tears spill down her cheek. But the stress melts away as she inhales the calming scent of her friends. "T-they said. Said-" A deep gulp clears the Alicorn's throat. "What they said couldn't be true."

"Hush, Twilight." Luna's voice calls as she half-turns, but it was still solid and firm. The younger Alicorn swiftly shuts her mouth, but instead of remonstration, the Princess turns and crosses back towards them in silence. The tall Alicorn regards all three, seeing them like a clutch of chicks by the slightly aloof expression, before suddenly flaring out her right wing and enfolding Twilight and Sunset in a pillowy embrace. With a soft soothing hiss of breath, she nestles the younger princess in the crook of her neck. "We said we would protect thee, and we shall."

Surrounded by warmth, the Alicorn's minute shivers and worries swiftly melt away. After nearly a full minute in the embrace, Twilight sniffs to clear her nostrils and smiles at her friends. Sunset and Starlight both pull back just long enough to grin as the feathery midnight wings release them all. "Thank you, princess." She whispers before looking between Sunset and Starlight who both matched her smile. "You came."

"Hey, what can I say? You pulled me out of a dark place once, so it's only fair that I get to pay that back, right?" Sunset returns the joyful grin.

Starlight Glimmer's smile turns straight into a smirk, "It's what friends do, right?" The Unicorn winks and playfully nudges her with a forehoof.

Luna glances around, head almost on a swivel once again as she fluidly lets her gaze drift on the wall of amorphous darkness. The path disappears just in front of her, faded from existence. "Empathy."

"Sunset Shimmer, but you can call me Sunset. Or Shimmer, I guess."

"Empathy." Luna's voice steels itself as the previous maternal warmth dissolves into iron resolve. "We have little time, and have seemingly lost the path with our hesitation. You said that you could get us through."

She bobs her head, perhaps a little meekly as her ears flatten back. "Y-yes. I mean, I'm actually kinda following you." That gets a wry look from both Alicorns. Seeing as she'd perhaps inadvertently drawn their attention, Sunset coughs once and gestures weakly. "See, I mean, I'm just mostly avoiding certain things and I can tell what each 'layer' of this stupid place is... I mean, there's six left before we get to the core, but some feel like they're growing-"

"Sunset Shimmer." Luna fixes her with a potent glare. "Do pray tell, but be brief."

Sunset's once steady voice breaks into a babble that might be enough to challenge Pinkie on a bad day. "You were already in here before so I'm kinda backtracking you by... well, I mean it's kinda... you know when you're out hunting and you find a trail of-"

"If you're going to say what I think you are, cease." Luna's firmly set jaw and beady glare have the desired effect. "I've been compared to an animal for long enough, even in jest."

"Sorry, sorry. AJ took me out on a nature hike a few weeks ago and it kinda stuck, so... sorry." She cringes, flinching away from the unimpressed Lunar diarch. "But, uh, yeah. I mean, I can get you to the whatever it is, and back where you were before."

"Lead the way." Luna nods, "So long as you're able to continue: Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer,"

"All good here, princess." Starlight nods once and rises to standing after giving Twilight another hug and offering a hoof up.

Twilight's attention rapidly strays to Luna. She nods rapidly while taking Starlight's proffered help. "Yes, yes Princess. I'm okay now. But, they know about you."

"Of course, I'd be insulted if they didn't." The stern and prideful grin that slides across her face was one neither pony had seen from her before. But Starlight did arch a brow in genuine confusion. Luna's expression might have been natural, but it felt like it came from somewhere else.

As Luna glances at the obsidian pathway less than the width of her outstretched wings, Starlight whispers quietly, "For a second she reminded me of Trixie. Noooot a good look on her."

Sunset nods, pulling closer in conference with the two and matching Starlight's whisper, "... is it too late to say that she's not the only thing there?"

Both Twilight and Starlight shoot her a worried glance. But the princess pipes up, "What do you mean?"

"Ever caught a whiff of Rarity when she's trying on a new perfume and doesn't know exactly how much to put on?" Sunset mumbles quietly to her two friends. Seeing both ponies nod, Sunset just softly concludes, "Like that; it's too strong and definitely not natural."

"You're sure?" Starlight cautiously whispers back. All three turn to eye Luna as she trots in front of them. She favors her right side, and Sunset narrows her eyes at her left wing that had tucked itself tightly against her barrel.

"Positive." Sunset mutters, then follows after just as Luna began to look back in their direction.

"Come now, Empathy!" Luna barks and stamps her forehoof at the edge of the obsidian path, "Thou must be our pathfinder!"

"Coming!" Sunset calls and trots forward. She looks back over her withers at her friends, shooting both an apprehensive glance before covertly tilting her head towards the Princess of the Night. Both ponies got the message: 'watch her.'

The pair quickly trots behind Sunset and catches up with her and Luna. Sunset's horn glows as she halts alongside Luna and asks with quiet hesitation, "M-may I, princess?"

Luna carefully considers it in silence before turning back to the blank whirling wall of darkness in front of her, then nods. "Proceed."

Starlight touches her withers as her friends look on. The Unicorn's eyes glow white for an instant, and she licks her lips before gesturing forward with a weak bob of her head. "This way." and steadfastly trots ahead with the princess of the night right behind her. As Sunset nears, the pathway extends a few hooflengths in front of her and keeps going as she wends her way into the morass.

All around them is the ring of Starlight's arcane barrier, soon joined by Twilight's sympathetic ruby shield. Twilight gazes into the maelstrom, where lightning flashes to illuminate vague silhouettes of towering mountains and amorphous shapes in the darkness. The rumble of roiling rocks sounds in the abyss, mimicking the calving of icebergs in the stormy northern Celestial sea. Through the blackness, alongside the twisted denizens of this arcane-imbued plane, the quartet of ponies snake their way along a narrow obsidian pathway towards parts unknown.

It doesn't take long for the first folk to emerge. A winging pathway curves to the left, one that Sunset veers sharply away from. Likely feeling Luna's questioning glare, Sunset looks back with a weak grin, "Trust me." It gets a nod, and the group continues on. But after only a few steps, the meandering winds picks up another sound.

Laughter.

A deep, mirthless, cackle echoes from the endless depths, halting all four ponies in their tracks. It's soon joined by the first few morose notes of a guttural song welling up from the ether.

Twilight licks her lips and quickly trots forward, leaving Starlight to pad along behind her. "Are you sure this is the way, Sunset?"

"Yeah." Sunset nods sharply with a reassuring smile, but Luna was glancing to her left, off towards the other pathway.

The cackling becomes more formed, more distinct. It was wild, manic, and bitter. Luna scowls as the mocking echo pricks her ears and sets them back flat against her skull. And from the glint of flickering lights beyond the swirling wall, the ponies each saw the towering bipedal form. "Well now, what do we have here? Three insignificant flecks of spit, and one astral whore who's wandered in so deep, she doesn't even know she's drowning."

"Erebus." Luna's single word drips malice and venom. Her muzzle twitches, curling at the edges into a sneer of disgust. She shifts herself, widening her stance into a predatory crouch and staring daggers at the form obscured among the tines of forked lightning.

"Princess Luna, c'mon." Sunset whispers, backtracking a few steps.

But the slithering voice presses further in its contemptuous crooning, "You're a little far from home and a little far from the Lupercal. He won't be saving your worthless hides this time, little horse. Let me guess, you made a mistake, didn't you? What's the matter, did he throw you aside or did you stomp off like an entitled child when he wouldn't do what you wanted?" The deep resonating voice seemed to set both Twilight and Sunset on edge, but Luna's fur prickled as she narrows her eyes.

Starlight licks her lips, "Twilight... can you maybe see if you can find out-"

"What that is?" Twilight finishes her sentence and nods. With a flicker of her horn, she blinks, head tilting towards the hesitating Sunset further down the path. She looks out further, "what in Tartarus is that?"

"He's a Sorcerer." Luna mutters in a deep and rasping tone, chillingly familiar for Twilight who remembered the poised stance and deep resonant coldness from the ruined towers of the Castle of Two Sisters almost half a decade ago. "A liar. A snake-"

Twilight's confidence wavers as she glances back and forth between the distant bipedal form, making out the crown of horns on its head when she squinted. But the arcane resonance was off. "Yeah but the voice is coming from up ahead, not-"

"-he engineered all of this. He's set to twist and pervert the truth into something grim, something dark." Luna's teeth audibly grind as the rolling thunder of monolithic slabs crashing in the distance echo in the deep.

"I twist nothing, I merely speak the truth!" Erebus's roar shakes the void, sending shudders along the obsidian path, warbling vibrations that even the blind would have a hard time not seeing. "That's what you don't understand, what you still fail to grasp!"

Sunset licks her lips and turns back, mouthing 'Twilight, keep him talking and don't let her leave'. She uncomfortably glances at the figure, then further up the path before giving Starlight a covert twitch of her head.

The other Unicorn nods and cups a hoof to Twilight's ear to whisper, "Keep the barrier up, we'll be right back." After a nod, Twilight takes a breath and does exactly as asked.

Luna huffs dismissively, missing as Starlight carefully edges along behind her and up to Sunset. The powerful Unicorn forms another of her barriers and both her and their empathic guide head forward as the Princess of the Night shouts, "Thou art a wretched and infernal serpent! Thy slitherings and wisperings while hiding in the nooks and rocks of obscurity are henceforth revealed! A reckoning is at hoof, and thou shalt crawl on thy belly as all shall know thee for what thou truly art!"

Erebus's rasping voice continues unabated, "You still don't get it! This isn't about you, or at least, it wasn't. Mankind is meant to rule. Mankind WILL rule! We will take this galaxy from the talons, hooves, and tendrils of the xeno filth and return it to the hands of the gods! The Primordial powers created this for us, and now others are trying to usurp them. And the worthless, incompetent, utterly idiotic galactic mistakes that you are, can't even see what you've muddled into. You can't even begin to imagine just how cosmically insignificant you are!"

Luna's muzzle twitches as she keeps facing straight ahead. But her wings twitch, and Twilight spots the slight flinch and falter as her left wing pulls in closer to her body. Through the dark fur, she catches a glimpse of blackened scabs and chunks of char clinging to her barrel. The wound is a blackened scar driven through barrel and wing joint.

"Dear Celestia...Princess, you're hurt!" Twilight's whisper-shout of concern draws a flick of the diarchs tail. As she tenses to charge ahead, she receives an over-the-shoulder glare from Luna in return. Luna's pitiless snarl spoke volumes: 'not now'.

And the voice continues in a dogmatic drone, "No, no of course not. How could you know how pitifully pointless your lives are. Now you reveal yourselves, when we are on the ascendance, and the Powers rise to prominence once again!?" He cackles with a mirthless laugh, "You've committed your entire miserable race to extinction! We will find you, we will simply take you: you shall be the play things of dogs, the meat on our tables, the bonemeal to build our temples, and fertilizer for that which has more value than your lives. You are few, we are many. The powers of the Primordial Truth will drown you, and the faithful legions of the astartes-"

"Horus denied thee already! His sons will put thy head on a stake before this day is through, Sorcerer! Mark Our words, they are already coming for thee. They will set right all that thou sought to corrupt, and then burn thy unhallowed temples to the ground! TODAY IS THE DAY THOU SHALT RUE THY MISGUIDED CHOICE, AND THE PONY THOU CALL'ST INSIGNIFICANT WILL STAMP THY CORPSE INTO THE MUD!"

The rolling boom of Luna's voice crackles like thunder, sending up shocks of pure blood red smears through the inky black walls. Her muzzle contorts into a snarl, exposing a row of serrated teeth. Shocked to a standstill, Twilight's ears ring from the sudden explosion of noise that drown out even the scream of the void. The Alicorn in front of her stands silhouetted by the blood red whirlpool, staring through it at some monstrous horned Sorcerer on the other side. But from there, Twilight could see only a near-black Alicorn, her mane and tail flickering nubulae and starts, comets and ever changing astrological patterns.

"CEIFADOR!" The Alicorn roars, and the halberd of myth and legend congeals from the gathering darkness. Its silhouette forms in a deep unlight of nocturnal gloom as the princess stares pitilessly at the figure, her icy glare dripping malice as a crown of deepest shadow gathers around her.

Anix's sickly voice all but whispers itself in Twilight's ear as she's stunned to inaction. "They are the warrior gods; like the bonfire that blazes, and blazes, until the fuel is gone. They too will be spent when their purposes are fulfilled. It is not just their nature, they were made that way." The image almost exactly the same as she'd been shown.

"Yes, that's just what he said before he succumbed. You are too late, my little starry whore." he spits and she can almost feel the malicious grin, "You left him there to die in agony, to suffer the ages alone, waiting for your return. Perhaps together you might have stood a chance. Together, maybe your interference may have meant something. But he is a martyr now, he is ours. Horus Lupercal is no more. The Warmaster will arise to lead the final march of the gods. The few feeble sons that may well have tried to attend them, are just as dead as those you left behind a thousand years ago... or did you think your own little issues were a mystery to us? That we wouldn't know about that little mistake, too?" Erebus's voice slowly grows more distant, echoing the same mocking laugh.

Luna plunges through the veil of smoke and darkness with an enraged roar, flinging herself at the distant shape. "Luna, wait!" Twilight chokes out as the walls of sanguine smoke engulfs her completely. Twilight lights her horn, expanding the sheet of crackling ruby red arcane power pulsing outward.

"Would you like proof?" Erebus mockingly goads with a breathy sigh, "perhaps for the sake of one we both held deer, I'll be benevolent and grant you one little gift to ease your mind. I know all about the Lupercal's wayward son. Now, I'll let you watch him die. Just remember, horse, his blood is on your head."

The arcane barrier flickers around her just as a pair of familiar pony voices reach her ears, "Twilight, it's a trap! That's not the Sorcerer!"

Twilight grunts in exertion as the sudden tide of darkness crashes in on her barrier like an ocean. The discordant chant is matched by discordant music, chants and pipes, primitive instruments entwining in a barbaric dirge. The field shrinks drastically, leaving her barely enough room to gallop without striking the barrier. The cloying noise seems to whip the storm into a frenzy. A cry of surprise and pain rings out from behind her, and Twilight turns in time to spot the distant pale blue glow flicker and begin to fade. With a hesitant glance between the wavering arcane barrier and the disappearing princess of the night. With a resigned sigh and muted whimper of worry, Twilight plunges back towards Starlight and Sunset.

'Please hang on!' the silent words spring to Twilight's lips as she takes to wing and streaks towards the flickering cerulean glow.

"LIES! DAMNED LIES, ALL!" Despite the Canterlot shout, Luna's voice echoes tinny and distant, as if underwater. The pair of Unicorns nearly blunder straight back into her, but the damage seemed done. Starlight was panting, sweat pouring down her face as exertion took a hold, and she leans heavily on Sunset who supports her as best she can.

But then the Alicorn sees her friend's eyes drift to a spot just over her left shoulder. Sunset's face pales to ashen white, eyes widening as she freezes in place. Twilight calls, "Suns-"

"S-she's h-here..." Sunset trembles, rooted to the spot and points.

"Who?" Starlight groans, narrowing her eyes and blinking back the stinging sweat dribbling from her brow. But Twilight had caught sight of it: a lithe and slender figure towers over the distant Alicorn's narrow frame. A second set of scythe like arms splits away from its body as a deep and feminine laugh rings in the deep.

"The Lurker."