One thousand years before Princess Luna became the wicked Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon, Iscariat Faust was her court magician. Those were happier times for Iscariat, when all that mattered to him were the cheers and laughter of his Princess and patron. However, when that god awful day came, when the sweet and innocent Luna was corrupted by envy and jealousy that was the day his life came to an end, and a new being took his place. For only hours before Luna's fall, the two Princesses of Sun and Moon, as well as Iscariat's long time mentor, Sorca the Mystic, approached the confused young stallion, and informed him that he was "chosen." At first, Iscariat laughed at their choice of words saying, "What could a bare flank be chosen for?"; which was a reasonable question, for of all his friends and class mates he alone had yet to receive his cutie mark.

Together the three mares explained to him that he was chosen for this task the moment Sorca chose him to be her apprentice, "Cutie mark or not, you got a spark in you kid. A spark that would rival Star Swirl himself and you can quote me on that," Sorca said poking Iscariat's chest. Princess Luna went on to say that only an elite few are ever awarded this important charge, "Thou shouldst feel honored and proud!" she roared in the royal Canterlot voice. According to the three mares he was to be made Sorca's replacement as curator of the Arch-Library, the supreme repository of all Equestrian knowledge; Iscariat almost had a heart attack. Using her magic to slow his heart rhythm, Princess Celestia assured Iscariat that he wasn't given something beyond his abilities, and that Sorca would be by his side until he could manage on his own. Iscariat was relieved to hear those words, but it was not to be, for when Nightmare Moon was born Sorca went to confront her in an attempt to bring Luna back from her madness; she died almost on sight.

Completely alone, Iscariat had to spend the next thousand years learning the ins and outs of the Arch-Library, never taking a moments rest, except to sleep, only to resume his never ending work. After both Princess Luna and Sorca were wrenched from his life, on the most important day of his life, Iscariat lost his joyous spirit. No longer did he seek to make the masses laugh, or partake in the company of others, instead he allowed his work to consume him, making him cold and distant. Even the manifestation of his cutie mark, nor the welcome return of Princess Luna, seemed to alter his disposition towards others. Iscariat has known nothing but the task of collecting and cataloging all the information of Equestria in the Arch Library, and he was good at it having amassed enough information to fill five hundred shelves, in three separate wings respectively.

Sitting behind his desk, Iscariat was just finishing writing down over one thousand new spells that newly crowned; Princess Twilight Sparkle had forward him after she developed them, two days ago. The sheer complexity of each spell was apparent in the fact that every step was broken down in the greatest of detail, and even footnotes were added to each one. Though Iscariat admired the Princess' eye for detail, he really wished she would shorten her explanations; "Like right here," he said to himself, using his quill to point at a very length expository. "She could have easily replaced this whole paragraph, and footnote, with one word," Iscariat grumbled, as he jotted down the last three pages, and then shut the massive tome he wrote in. Using his magic to envelope the heavy tome in a grey aura, Iscariat gently levitated it up the shelf behind him, and carefully placed it in the middle of the highest row.

His scribing now completed, Iscariat rose from his haunches stretching his limbs, the library's great grandfather clock rung eleven bells throughout the entire structure, and shaking many of the shelves. “Confounded clock, three seconds slow again!" Iscariat bellowed as he examined his own, silver, pocket watch as a comparison, before stuffing it back in his black vest pocket. Absolutely livid at the old relic's inaccuracy, Iscariat thrust opened his desk's upper left drawer, and extracted a tiny brass key with his mouth. Bucking the drawer shut, Iscariat shuffled his way to the great grandfather clock, located at the library's center, and thus visible from anywhere. Clenching the brass key like a vice, Iscariat couldn't help but recall the last time he had to adjust that infernal eye sore, "Damn clock isn't even worth its weight in scrap. Were it not the first clock ever made I'd have shown it the hoof a long time ago," Iscariat said, while menacingly waving his left hoof.

Five feet from the clock's door, Iscariat magically turns the knob then walks up the twenty flights of stairs to the machine's inner mechanism. Taking a deep breath, Iscariat used the key to open a panel at the clock's center, then using time magic he slowed the clock's master gear, and thus halted the device cold. Next came the part he hated the most, while maintaining his time spell, he had to delicately adjust the clock's hands with telekinesis so they match the position his pocket watch's hands would be, and then he had to wait for the exact second to dispel his temporal magic. Everything was set as his pocket watch's second hand approached the sixty second mark, and just as he was about to let go a loud crash broke his concentration one second too early.

"A hay seeds, if there is one thing I hate more than being three seconds off, it's one second off!" Iscariat shouted at the top of his lungs, kicking the panel shut, and thrusting both the key and pocket watch into his pockets respectively.

Believing it best to leave the clock alone, until he had cooled down a tad, Iscariat went back down the stairs to take out his anger on whatever caused the ruckus. Hoofing the door open, Iscariat's emotions did a one eighty, because sticking out from beneath a mound of books, with two shelves on top, was the powder blue tail of his assistant, Tabitha the ferret. His pupils dilating, and body shivering, Iscariat soon found himself digging into the book pile with hoof and magic, while shouting out Tabitha's name, and taking great care no to damage any of the books in the process. After sixteen minutes, though the clock's hands were still at the fifteen minute mark, Iscariat held his assistant before him in a magical field that kept her off the ground.

Laying Tabitha down upon a table, Iscariat saw her body littered with bruises of various severities, "Probably from the shelves dumping their contents on her," he said to himself, his mind instantly thinking of several likely events that could have caused this. However, what really caught his attention was a small, jagged, crystal embedded in Tabitha's left side causing a steady stream of blood to pour out. Iscariat hoped that what he was looking at wasn't what he thought it was, but in any event he had to extract it to heal Tabitha's wound. Biting down on his lips, Iscariat used his magic to quickly pull out the crystal, and restrain Tabitha as he mended her skin, as well as removed any lingering fragments; it took half an hour. With the operation completed, Iscariat laid Tabitha upon her tiny bed, that he teleported to him from his room, and then focused his undivided attention to the black crystal upon the table, Tabitha's blood still lingered on it.

"Not possible," Iscariat said, comparing the crystal to an artistic interpretation he found in a history tome concerning the Crystal Empire. According to the tome, this crystal before him was concentrated dark magic, the type of magic only King Sombra was capable of conjuring; an impossibility because King Sombra was vanquished by the combined efforts of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and the young dragon Spike. "There is just no way, but still...How do I explain this?" Iscariat asked himself, glaring at the crystal shard with a puzzled expression. Feeling a slight pain in the pit of his stomach, Iscariat closed the history tome, and instead sought guidance from the only section in the Arch-Library that predated even Princess Celestia; the Alpha Wing. Located in the oldest portion of the Library, behind a door that only the current curator can open, the Alpha Wing housed within its walls six scrolls, reputed to have been written by the first curator; a mare or stallion that lived on Equestria before even Princess Celestia.

Iscariat has only entered this wing once before, a thousand years ago, at the behest of Princess Celestia, for it was through the knowledge contained within that he was able to instruct the Princess on how to use the Elements of Harmony on her own; a feat once thought impossible, and that was just from one of the scrolls. It was after that event that Iscariat received his cutie mark, as well as closed himself off to the rest of Equestria, and hoped never to have to set hoof in that wing again. Taking a deep breath, Iscariat pulled from under his vest a clear decahedron crystal, that he kept tied around his neck, the faceted stone glowed with a faint white light reminiscent to a heartbeat. Levitating the crystal into a small indent on the door before him, a series of locks and gears whirled about clicking and clanking as they unlocked themselves, and allowed the door to swing open. Placing the crystal beneath his vest, Iscariat crossed the threshold into a dark, cobblestone, chamber lite only by twelve sconces, and at the far end of the chamber, mounted on the wall like holy artifacts, were the six scrolls, each contained within its own brass, cylindrical, container.

Iscariat took a moment to prepare, shaking off some unpleasant memories before using his magic to grasp the first scroll. However, as his grey aura enshrouded the brass container a cold sensation passed over him, and without warning the sixth scroll exploded out of its container and zoomed past him. Wasting no time, Iscariat sealed the door behind him, as he rushed after the one of a kind and extremely dangerous, scroll. He didn't have to run far, for just as he picked up speed the scroll came to a stop only a few feet from the great grandfather clock, and standing before it, with a triumphant grin on his muzzle, was King Sombra.

"You should be dead," Iscariat said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated," King Sombra replied, placing the scroll beneath his regal cape. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm checking this out."

"Sorry, but one cannot check out referencing materials. However, I do believe that I have a copy of Daring Do you can borrow," Iscariat said through gritted teeth, his horn glowing with a strong grey aura.

“Very cute, seriously though, I'm taking this with or without your consent, curator," King Sombra said, giving Iscariat but a taste of his dark powers by crushing his charged up magic with a simple zap of his horn.

"I'll say this only once. Give. Me. The scroll," Iscariat said his whole body now encompassed by a perfect magical grey sphere. His eyes scowling at King Sombra, as he then shot a spark of magical energy that slashed across Sombra's muzzle.

"Okay, youngster. I'm game if you are," King Sombra said as a violet-black, jagged, aura flowed around him, his crimson horn crackling with violet lightning, and his eyes glowing in a darker shade of green.

The two stallions called forth to them enough magic to distort the air between them, and cause gravity itself to warp around them, levitating them and other objects. These phenomena were only temporary, and when gravity had restored itself, they both teleported right at each other crossing horns, and blasting magical beams at on another. King Sombra casted circles around Iscariat, using his dark magic to assume a shadow form that absorbed all of Iscariat's spells, and feed the pure energy to Sombra maintaining his vitality. The duel barely lasted two minutes before Sombra up staged Iscariat by not only binding his legs together, but imprisoning him inside an inverted, spherical, shield, then inhibiting his magic with the same spell he used on Shining Armor, and all of it done simultaneously. Iscariat was beside himself, he screwed up royal this time, allowing his anger to get the better of him, engaging King Sombra of all ponies to a magical duel when he knew of his exploits and worse yet choosing the wrong battlefield.

With an evil snicker, King Sombra turned to make his way out, only to be blocked by Tabitha; the poor thing could barely stand on her own feet, but she was staring Sombra down like a fierce tiger. King Sombra couldn't help but laugh at the tiny creature's audacity, to think that such a meek beast would dare stand up to a being of Sombra's status. Raising his hoof as if to crush Tabitha, Sombra was dumb struck when a blinding flash shot out from Tabitha, followed by a loud bang that knocked him to the ground. Shaking his head to restore the focus in his vision, King Sombra turned towards Tabitha with an angry grin, his horn charging up to unleash a devastating spell that would smite the bothersome ferret, however what he now gazed at wasn't Tabitha, and all colored faded from Sombra's face. Towering before him, at twenty feet, was the dog dragon, Marduk; guardian of the Arch-Library since its creation, and reputed god among all magical creatures.

Taking a step back from the formidable creature, King Sombra could feel the all too familiar grasp of fear clenching over him as he peered into Marduk's imposing visage. With both canine and dragon fangs protruding from its long snout, a dog nose with two long mustache whiskers flanking its sides, a well-toned body with dragon scales adorning it an a trail of fur running down its back towards the tip of its serpent like tail, four pawed feet with sharp talons, and a pair of pointed dog ears made Marduk a true sight to behold as well as fear. Paralyzed by Marduk's stature, King Sombra received the first strike, being side swiped by Marduk's serpent tail; the abrasive scales scraping his tough stallion hide. Smashing into a sturdy oak table, King Sombra felt one of his fore legs, his right it seemed, become dislocated after that "light" tap Marduk hit him with. Groaning in pain, King Sombra forced himself to his feet; his breathing was heavy and full of irritation.

"No one strikes me!" he bellowed at Marduk.

Marduk did not tremble before King Sombra as it unleashed a blaze of emerald green fire, that scorched the very stone floor King Sombra stood upon, but not Sombra himself. Using his dark magic to shield himself from the blaze, King Sombra then pushed the flames back to its source causing a small explosion that blacked Marduk's face in soot and brimstone. Seizing his chance, King Sombra shot a larger form of the black crystal he stabbed Tabitha with, piercing Marduk's only visible weak spot; its eyes. The black crystal tore into Marduk's right eye, tearing it apart with each tiny movement made, as well as embedding tiny fragments deep into Marduk's cornea, resulting in even more pain. Unable to assist, Iscariat could only watch King Sombra limp past the thrashing Marduk, and then out the library doors into the darkness of night.

Eventually, Marduk extracted the jagged shard, tiny pieces still clung to its inner eye, but at least the pain was manageable, though it could not compare to the anguish it felt at failing in its most sacred duty. Iscariat gazed at his assistant through his spherical prison, "We both failed," he said to himself, spontaneously smashing his head, repeatedly, against his prison's wall. It took fifteen minutes for the spells on Iscariat to dissipate, and once they did he proceeded in carefully removing each and every crystal fragment still embedded in Marduk's right eye. Once the eye was cleansed of all shards, Iscariat used healing magic to, at the very least, mended the eye's skin together to prevent any infection; he doubted the eye would ever see anything again. The time was three o'clock at night when Iscariat was at last able to sit down behind his desk, Marduk, back in its ferret form, resting beside him, and gazing at him through its one good eye.

Petting his assistance's head very gingerly, one of the few times Iscariat ever shows any affection, he waited till Tabitha slipped off into dream land, her head resting on his left, fore,  leg, before turning to the matter at hoof. Extracting a piece of paper from his desk, Iscariat formulated a letter to Princess Celestia, explaining exactly what just occurred, as well as attaching a formal apology that in a way read like a letter of resignation. Reviewing his work for any grammatical or punctuation errors, he then reached into his desk's lower right drawer, and retrieves a small cauldron; that he instantly sets ablaze with sapphire blue fire from the tip of his horn. With the cauldron lite, Iscariat drops both letters into the fire, then watches as the flames consume the parchments, and then shoot out like a comet across the night sky, making its way to Canterlot as it was enchanted to.

“I guess my involvement in this is over," Iscariat said, cracking his neck to relieve its stiffness, and then almost instinctively glared at the great grandfather clock. “Don’t think I have forgotten about you. As Celestia is my witness, I will have you running on time."

Rising to his feet, though careful not awake Tabitha, Iscariat ran full tilt towards the annoying time keeper, determined to have it running as efficiently as his pocket watch.    

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: I Don't Hate You Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 43 Minutes