Authors Note: Warning! Mood whiplash imminent. GrimDark tag for this chapter too. Have a box of tissues and a picture of Princess Luna being adorable or other cheerful item to hand.
Rising Sun 20th 3473 EE
Our shared madness is over. I write these words to confess my guilt, my part in what happened. We have become what we wanted to be, and much more, but at a cost far higher than we would have been willing to pay!
The power sharing ritual was going well, we'd established our linkages and power was flowing nicely into the triune, both from our own magical auras and from the ambient magical energy. We could feel the intense pull of the core, but our anchors were holding perfectly.
Most of all, the triune was perfectly balanced and containing the energies without a problem. I'd figured out a wrinkle in the containment wards from the measurements we got during the iceberg tow, so now a part of the energy went into reinforcing the triune in step with the rising energy level.
It was when the power flow started to feed back into the transformation spell that it happened. I could feel an intense pain inside my forehead as a horn budded there, but I could also feel the magic swirling around it, and flowing into it. Luna's sides must have been very painful, they twitched and shivered as pegasus wings budded from them. Atlas had the worse of it as he had both things happening but he withstood it with Earth pony stoicism.
However, as the power flow rose to it's peak, the mood charm on his necklace started to glow. That wasn't supposed to happen, the energies we were manipulating were focussed entirely on ourselves. Suddenly, we could feel a power drain from Atlas's side of the circle. The pull from the core and the links to Atlas also weakened, and the pull from our anchors was suddenly unbalanced in their favour. Worse still, the imbalance was causing the highly charged containment wards to oscillate wildly.
Luna just had time for a horrified gasp, and I tried desperately to stabilise the triune again with the powers of my new horn. It was like trying to shape liquid fire, but I did not want to find out what would happen if the containment wards failed. The amount of energy stored in the triune was immense, far beyond anything we'd ever handled before.
Of course, there was also the problem that with the anchor lines more powerful than the forces they held us against, we would be drawn into our anchor entities. Luna would be bound into the moon, myself the sun, and Atlas the ground. Without our sentient force to control it, the entire ritual, and the wards would collapse anyway and the energies would be released.
There was too much power flowing through the ritual to simply stop the spell, and thaumic hysteresis made it impossible to even balance the containment against the wildly fluctuating power levels. Luna was helping me by then, but it wasn't enough. We were barely holding the containment together, but we could feel ourselves fading away. I could even see the walls of the lab becoming co-existent with an endless sea of fire, and Luna later told me she saw an endless grey plain under a black sky under harsh stars.
I don't know if it was a matter of rapid calculation, or just an inspiration, but Atlas saw what would happen as well as we did, and came up with the only solution he could think of. What he did in response was both brilliant, and terrible. He threw his power, not into resisting as we were, but into empowering his earth anchor.
His connection to the earth was empowered, and so was his ability to draw on that connection, the most basic Earth pony magical ability. He then threw that additional power into strengthening our linkages, stabilising them and feeding the force that was pulling him in through to them. He kept us from being pulled into our anchors as he was, and gave us more power to work with.
He held us there, even as he was drawn through the flags of the floor, and we'd almost managed to stabilise things to the point where we could drain off the power safely. However, his final disappearance caused a massive shift in the forces surrounding us, and we flung away. The last thing I remembered was the unbalanced triune finally giving up the ghost and released a massive blast of magical energy.
When we awoke, we were lying on the floor of our lab, myself in a shallow pool of molten lava, which felt to me like warm porridge, and Luna in a circle of grey dust and rock that smelled of sulphur and saltpetre. Needless to say, the power released had completed the transformation. We were both Alicorns, and we'd grown as big as the largest of our guard ponies. There was a third circle of warm brown soil, but no Atlas.
I don't remember the next few minutes too clearly. We stumbled over to the circle of dirt, and collapsed by it, crying. Luna was first to do more, casting a few quick diagnostic spells to discover what had happened. I could see the magic, feel it, and understand exactly what she was doing, I have spent years studying spell-craft and theory, but until that moment, I never understood what it meant to wield it.
I could read the results as well as she, our cousin had been drawn deep into the earth, far below any mine or cavern. Our only relief was that he was asleep, unconscious even, since the only thing worse then being trapped down there would be being aware of it. We tried to raise him back to the surface, but his tie to his anchor was beyond even our new powers to affect. When the ground beneath us started to shake, we had to stop.
Until then, neither of us had really been aware of a further change. Both of us had been empowered many times beyond my most optimistic estimate, but not all that power was from within us. Each of us was now the terminus of a powerful ley-line, one that reached off into the sky. As you can guess Luna's reached to the moon, which was in it's waning crescent phase, and mine to the sun.
We could draw on their power to enhance our spells, and feed power back, something that later became critical. I've figured out the fantastically unlikely combination of circumstances that had converted our anchor lines into stable ley-lines, but at the time we were too stunned to do more than accept it. However, we decided to go find help. Both our families were in residence, and with both my mother and Atlas's father adding their wisdom, we might still be able to retrieve him.
What we found was an empty castle, items and clothing, even jewellery left where they'd dropped. No signs of a struggle or a frantic evacuation, just absence of anything pony. Anything live in fact, animals and plant life was just as absent. We could also feel the remnant of the magical shock-wave that had been unleashed, an ambient magic level many times that of the rest of Equestria.
I wondered what happened, and then found another aspect of my link with the sun. I could see what had happened, I could learn of events everywhere the light of the sun reached, both past and present. Luna had a similar power for the light of the moon, and saw it with me. It was the shock-wave of course, such powerful magical energy, backed by the manna of entire worlds. It was too much for anything living to handle, except for three entities at the eye of the storm, conceived in just that environment.
As the shock-wave washed over them, they just vanished, so quickly they surely didn't even realise what had happened. We watched in horror as our families, our personal servants, the castle staff, every-pony and every living thing within a league of the castle, gone as if they never existed. The structures, having little magic were untouched, though every enchanted artefact had been utterly destroyed.
Beyond that the magic weakened enough that things and ponies simply changed, along with every other living or magical thing. We saw the greater part of Maresia go from a peaceful, productive Fife to a bizarre wasteland. The edge of the effect stopped just short of Ponyville, and we immediately flew there.
Well I say flew, but no sooner had we lifted into the air then we transformed. I became a blazing comet of solar fire, and Luna became a dark mist. Another aspect of our new power, presumably triggered by our desire to get to Ponyville as quickly as possible. Both of us travelled the distance which would have taken even me a half hour in a moment.
Our purpose was two-fold. First, to check that Blue Mane was safe and sound. She'd been visiting her parents house when the accident happened. Second, to look at her locket, for we both remembered the glow it had given off just before things had gone so wrong.
It seemed like all of Ponyville was out on the streets, staring in the direction of the castle. We ignored the looks of shock and cries of alarm as we reformed and landed. We simply raced into the alchemists shop and straight up to Blue Mane's room. She was there, lying sobbing on the bed, the locket thrown against the far wall.
Our new senses could tell something else, there was a second magical form within her, a new foal, hers and Atlas's. Even in our shock, Luna blushed furiously as her unspoken desire to find out when it had happened, triggered her moon clairvoyance followed that thought with images of what had happened under her moon.
Blue Mane brought her back with two words, in a tone of loathing I never thought I'd hear from her. "Silver Tongue!"
Luna was suddenly all business again, and ripped that locket apart. Considered abstractly, it was rather ingenious, a combination of power channelling and dissipation runes, which only became powered up when in a sufficiently powerful magical field. The basic charm work that produced the mood sensing effect obscured any trace of them until active.
Our clairvoyance back-tracked the events that lead up to it, the fear our iceberg stunt had engendered in that clique of conservatives, the decision to destroy us and any credibility our research had. Luna even managed to share her thoughts with me, an aspect of her domain I've been unable to duplicate, and we pooled our knowledge.
They'd found out about the pegasus based triunes (suddenly, the disappearance and unexplained deaths of several pegasi from the Fife suddenly made a lot more sense) and thought we might try the same thing with Earth ponies.
They had no idea of what we were really after, the concept of a hetro-thaumic triune never entered their minds, but to be able to empower both other, 'lesser' races would give us a massive strategic and political advantage and make hay of some of their deepest held beliefs. Allies would join us and reap the benefits, and they'd be left out in the cold. So they decided to destroy us, and Atlas's marriage to Blue Mane gave them the opening, or rather Silver Tongue did.
While he didn't move in their circles, he was friends with some of their younger relatives who did. He didn't change, just dissembled when he returned, well enough to fool even Atlas. In truth, he hated my cousin with a passion that grew every day. He'd have set the trap even without the large sum of Hoof marks they promised him, and later paid, rather than having him killed for knowing too much.
The idea was that whichever locket Atlas wore, he'd have it on or near him when we were trying to develop Earth pony triunes. He'd be an obvious participant. The power drain would unbalance the triune in a magical explosion that would wipe us and anybody nearby out.
They could then claim we'd destroyed ourselves with our dangerous experiments, avoiding any blame and giving them a perfect reason to push through further restrictions on magical research. It would have worked too, as there would be no-one left who could say otherwise.
Of course, it disrupted a triune a thousand times as powerful, and the devastation was a thousand times as great. Also, unfortunately for them, there were survivors, and we knew everything. In day and night, we could see every plot, every secret meeting and hidden agenda. In short, we saw everything that had lead up to this moment, including the fact that our iceberg, rather than scaring them straight, had triggered the destruction of our family and Fife.
It was that realisation that sent us both into insanity.
They'd looked to destroy us, and in that moment they succeeded. There was no longer a Celestia there, or a Luna, only The Pitiless Sun and Nightmare Moon.
My memories of the time after that are hazy, distorted, though I've now seen everything that happened through my solar clairvoyance. I still shudder at what I did, no matter how I want to deny it, the Pitiless Sun was and is a part of me, the sum of all my rage and despair, amplified by the power of an alicorn, piled upon my horn and thrust into the hearts of my foes.
Silver Tongue was first, easy to find. He was carousing in a tavern in Canterlot. We landed outside, and ripped the entire front off with a light touch of our combined telekinesis. Luna hauled him out, and held him up in front of the shocked crowd. He called for help, panicking, but no-one wanted to approach the pair of use, Nightmare Moon with her cloud-like aura of shadows, and my own flaming corona.
Among his cries were demands to know who we were, and that is all we said to him, who we were, and what we'd once been. Luna added only that he would pay for what he'd done, then crafted images, illusions in the air showing his crimes. There were denials, then demands, and finally pleading.
He might as well have said nothing. Luna turned that dream, or illusion power inward on him, drawing up his worst nightmares, his deepest fears and making him live them. I think it was a mercy when I finally touched him with the sun's power. I understand the processes that go on within it, though there are no words in Equestrian to describe them, but I can say that that fire is far hotter than any flame.
He vanished in an incandescent halo, an outline too bright for ordinary ponies to even look upon, and not even ashes remained. Some careful diagnostic spells might have detected some odd gasses in the area, but to all intents and purposes he'd vanished. That finally made the onlookers turn and gallop away, screaming.
We were systematic, hunting down each and every conspirator. The first few in Canterlot were easy, we out-ran the word of our approach easily. We winnowed through the castle, brushing aside the guards who tried to stop us with our telekinesis like a goose-filly herding her charges with a switch. Some were severely injured by being flung around, but the majority were spared.
I take no credit for that, I don't think the concept of mercy, or restrain was a part of either of our alter-egos. I believe it was simply that they were goal oriented to the point of monomania. Throwing guards aside was simpler than destroying them. I did wonder why The Pitiless Sun didn't just call down a flare to turn the whole of the city into a bubbling lava crater, something well within her power.
I've come to the conclusion that the only thing that spared Equestria a greater massacre was that destroying the guilty ones at a distance and watching remotely just didn't satisfy the need to end them as deeply as being able to look them in the eye, have them know the reason, and that there was no escape.
I just thank the ancestors that we only went after them and not their families. Once again the actions were single minded, the conspirators were the ones who had attacked us, they were the ones that would be destroyed. Nothing else was important. That also showed in the way our alter-egos acted when some of the guards of out-lying Fifes attempted to put up a defence.
Our insane alter-egos ignored any attackers until they actually attacked, and then smashed them in the most efficient way possible. It also showed just what our new bodies were capable of withstanding. They threw their most powerful combat spells, hurled by their best unicorns using triunes based on our newly published designs.
They might as well have been throwing thistle heads, no thistle heads would at least have stuck. The spells either rebounded or were absorbed, causing no damage. Throwing burning twigs or a cup of water on a blazing bonfire does not affect the bonfire one bit.
A group of pegasi attempted to dive-bomb Pitiless Sun with a ballista arrow slung between them, a twenty hoof long shaft with a forged iron tip that could go through four hooves of solid stone wall or twice that many ponies with ease. They were perfectly on target, and had released it with at least as much force as a ballista would have given it. It struck me full on the chest, and rebounded, tip bent like cheap pewter.
Eventually the slaughter was done. Everyone involved in the plot from the nobles who planned it to the artificer who'd created the lockets was not just dead but reduced to super-heated gasses. With their task done, Nightmare Moon and The Pitiless Sun returned to Maresia Keep.
That is where I am now, where we awoke for the second time. We've found out one other fact about our new condition, we can't die. I've had some hours to do some tests and diagnostic spells, and it appears our life-forces are tied into our anchors, which may well mean we will exist as long as they do. The results suggest that even if we found some way to damage ourselves, we'd regenerate from pretty much anything.
So I sit here, writing by the light of my horn. I will bring this journal up to date, and then try to sleep. I made Luna take a sleeping draught, the most powerful I could prepare, and managed to convince her to let it work on her. Potions don't affect us any more than spells, unless we let them. Well, it should give her a night free of nightmares, or Nightmare Moon.
Tomorrow we will venture forth into the world, and discover what has happened since our rampage. Will we be considered monsters, feared worse than hydras or feral dragons? Whatever our status, we still have a duty to those in Ponyville, and the other, smaller villages of the Fife that were outside the radius of effect.
We will do what we can, and try to atone for our actions. Understand that I'm not talking about trying to create equality among ponies, I still believe in that as strongly as I ever did. No, the things I must pay penance for are the results of my messing up so badly.
I'd love to share the blame with Luna (though she seems to have taken enough for herself already) but the spells she cast, the rituals she crafted were flawless, but based off what were clearly flawed designs. My designs. The iceberg was my idea too. If I can make her see that, maybe she'll stop blaming herself. She may well end up hating me, but I'd far rather that then her hating herself.
So tomorrow we will go out into the world, and I will face my doom, whatever it may be. I have eternity in front of me, maybe, just maybe that will be long enough for me to make restitution for my mistakes, though I doubt it.
Ancestors, who I can now never join, I will take whatever punishment you deem fit, endure whatever doom you set me too, but please, let Luna be alright, let her one day be happy again. Please.