Bound to me forever, a servant to my soul.

Magic is nothing, only tricks for show.

There is no magic, no blessing, no light at your horn.

There is only power.

And Darkness is true power.

Your Magic is Darkness, built to destroy.

And so you are bound, a mere slave to a greater power.

Rise, Twilight, Breaker of Worlds!

Twilight saw nothing.

She felt nothing

She WAS nothing. No body, no mind, no anything. All that remained was her splintered consciousness as she drifted in nothingness.

Something had stolen everything from her. Her magic, her body, and her mind were all in someone else’s possession. No amount of friendship would save her now. There were no Elements to save, no friends to make, nothing to fight. All that was left was a broken body floating in an empty void, devoid of everything, anything, to help her struggle.

Or maybe not nearly everything.

She remembered something...just before she fell. When the Reaper had placed the tiara on her head... something...something had happened. She...she had blasted the tiara with her magic...and...and...

The black fire on the tiara...had burned blue before the Reaper placed it on her head. But only half of it. The other half...remained as black...as night...

...

The cool caress of sleep embraced Twilight in its arms.

...

...

Something stirred in the darkness...

.

...

...

...

Something solid pressed against Twilight’s back.

...

...

...

A cool wind blew over her face, the air rushing over her and sending ripples coursing through her mane.

...

...

...

Something moved near Twilight.The sound of a hoof tapping echoed across the void.

...

...

...

There was nothing...

And then Twilight opened her eyes. She bolted upright, the adrenaline still flowing in her veins. She looked around for a bit, searching for the black form of the Reaper, or anything that may have threatened her. But there was nothing. Nothing. No hills, no plants, no, not even a tumbleweed rolled across the blank canvas. She tapped the ground, but it was as hard as stone, but without any feel to it. A blank texture on a huge expanse of paper. She saw the same whiteness for as long as she could see, the sky and the land blending together in a white globe that surrounded Twilight, enclosing her in a featureless prison without so much as a drop of color. The bright white burned her eyes, and Twilight found it hard to see. But she squinted anyway, trying to make out the small details. But there were none. She began to walk backwards, intimidated by the colorless landscape, and didn’t react for a few seconds when she bumped against something.

“Aaak!” the thing said.

Twilight flipped around, her nerves acting on impulse and twisting the purple unicorn 180 degrees to meet the mysterious talking object. But when she landed, her vision burning from all the white, a strange sight met her weary eyes. For it was a pony, her horn long and straight, that Twilight had pushed. She met the stranger’s lavender eyes, which, strangely, looked the same color as her coat. In the stranger’s irises, there was a  tiny pink star: a six-pointed one that matched her cutie mark to the dot.

Twilight scrutinized the stranger more. Her mane and tail were styled like hers, with the same flat bangs.. Her body structure was the same, just a bit taller and stronger. Her horn’s curl matched Twilight’s to the exact degree: 15.7%. A golden ring wrapped around the base of her horn, lacking any decoration save for a small sky-blue sapphire. The bracer aside, the gray mare looked almost exactly like Twilight. All that could differentiate the stranger from the purple unicorn was the fact that the stranger lacked any color. Save for her eyes and mane, her entire body was a monotone shade of gray. Her cloak and hood did little to add color to her drab body.

The mysterious stranger raised a hoof to her head, ruffling her navy blue hair. Red highlights ran through the follicles, in exact match to Twilight’s pink ones through her dark purple mane. She raised a hoof, strips of cloth coating it. The stranger then cocked her head when Twilight simply stared at her hoof.

“Oh, the younger generation these days. So... impolite.” she said in a grandmotherly tone. “You should know better as to refuse your thirty generations plus great-great-great-grandmother’s outstretched hoof.”

“Uh...” said Twilight. “Um...pardon me?”

“Really? You need pardoning? For what crime? You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”

“Uh...no...”

“Well, then, you should shake your thirty generations plus great-great-great-grandmother’s hoof before she grows tired and has to lean on her cane.” She gestured to her bladed staff, a thin and straight bundle of vines that grasped a metal blade in one end and a glowing red ball in the other.

Twilight gingerly took the mare’s hand, her face breaking into a nervous smile.

“That’s the spirit, Twilight. Marchers like us have to get to know each other. Being immortal means you’re going to have to make a few immortal friends.”

“Yes. I did. You’re a Marcher. You’re supposed to be immortal.” and when Twilight made a confused face in response, the Mare sighed and said. “Look. You’re immortal. You will not age past your prime. You are a Marcher. M-A-R-C-H-E-R. At least, I think that’s how its spelled... anyway, you should have known this centuries ago... oh, wait, no. I’m getting confuddled again. You... you are Twilight Sparkle, right?”

Twilight shook her head yes.

“Twilight... what? What’s your middle name?”

“I... don’t think I-”

“Right. You’re the nameless one. The other Twilight I know is an alicorn. But then, she’s dead. She’s the Marcher... or are you? My old head is being spazzy again. Uh... give me a second.”

Twilight watched her discolored doppelganger concentrate, her youthful face contorting in deep thought. Suddenly, flashes of light sparked around the gray mare. A pulse of magic flew through the air, the rippling blast whipping her hair around her face and blowing back her tail. The mare rose into the air as her magic focused, pure energy taking a corporeal form around her as she glowed bright white, shooting off beams of bright light. One of those beams hit Twilight, and her vision was gone in a flash of light, only to be replaced with a strange image: a colossal black dragon, with craggy, scaly skin and antlers adorning his head, black flame bursting out of his mouth. The vision lasted for only a second, but it was enough to blow Twilight back, her mouth agape. The mare rose higher in the air, the featureless ground receiving bad burns from the lucent beams that spread everywhere. The strange gray pony’s cloak was blown clean off, and her spear lay on the ground. Scratch marks covered her skin, and dried red blood coated the worst of the wounds. Her mane rippled with magical energy, as did her tail, giving her a Celestia-like appearance, with the same elongated muzzle and legs. A pair of huge wings sprouted from her back, spread wide, wide enough that some of the beams reflected off them and onto the white ground.

Another beam hit Twilight before she could see more. Her vision was once again destroyed, only to be replaced with another: A massive dragon stood before her, its two heads gazing at her hungrily. One head was frost-white, while the other was a cracked black, red lines carving up its face like streams of lava. Again, the vision only lasted a second, but just before it ended Twilight saw something out of the corner of her eye. There was a pony in front of her. The same Gray Mare that stood shining in front of her stood with her spear drawn, ready to slay a dragon. Twilight gasped as a third beam hit her and snatched her away again.

Now, she was in a strange room. A house of cards stood on her left, and the ground was checkered with pink and black. The floor was uneven. Rather, it constantly moved, like a solid ocean. Pink clouds rained brown cola rain down on the strange landscape, and long-legged rabbits roller-skated by. In the center of the strange world was a throne, and upon it sat Discord. Two ponies stood in front of him, one shining white, the other as black as night. Just before the vision ended, Twilight saw the ponies burst into light and darkness, and two bipedal things stood where they stood.

A fourth beam hit Twilight, the beam cluster starting to lessen as the gray alicorn began to descend. This time, she saw the huge dual-headed dragon from before, but this time lacking any color but a translucent black. Something fought it, the sound of sword on carapace rang across the black landscape. When she squinted, Twilight could just make out the warrior that beat back the dragon. She gasped.

An angel. The stuff of legend. The harbingers of life itself. A winged creature that stood on two legs, with magical armor that prevented all damage. Their hands grasped spectral swords, although the one this angel held was anything but ghostly. Her wings were spread wide, and mystical power radiated from her. Even through the illusion, Twilight could feel her power. Strangely, it felt familiar. It felt... like... Twilight gasped as the Angel turned her head towards her.

The power she was feeling was her own. She had seen her own eyes in the angel’s omnipresent gaze.

The vision ended, and Twilight crumpled to the ground.

The Gray Mare had recovered from her explosion of power, her mane no longer rippling with the arcane. She stared at the crumpled form of Twilight in front of her, her heart rapidly transitioning from exhaustion to fear and then to concern. She shook the purple unicorn several times, before punching her a few times with her wrapped hoof. Twilight would not awaken. The Mare knew she had been hit by her beams, and  the concern leaked through her face. She tried everything, from magical defibrillation to CPR. As she sent her own breath down Twilight’s throat, she knew this was all in vain. No amount of conventional healing would bring the purple unicorn back. She needed to wake her...with power.

The Mare held up her hoof, creating six sparks of purple magic. They spun around for a bit before congregating, forming a piece of metal shaped like a “N”. It was adorned with glowing red runes, and the two ends of the metal were sharpened like blades. The Mare took the object in her hoof, and with her magic levitated it over the prone form of Twilight.

“And so the Chosen has fallen. Destiny Link, remove this from her destiny. Let her March again!” she said.

The “N” rapidly bent into a straight line, the blades at opposite ends. The runes glowed bright blue now, and with a final burst of magic, the Mare plunged the blade into Twilight’s chest.

The purple unicorn disappeared in a flash of light.

The mare lifted her head from the place where Twilight had stood. She stared at where the horizon would be, if the world wasn’t featureless. There, coming towards her, was an electrical storm, bolts of lightning scorching the ground below it. She stared at it for a few seconds more before she too blinked away, her magic flaring and then poofing away in a flash of light, taking her with it.

In the distance, something roared.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight slept...

The threadbare blanket that covered her was ratty and torn, and filled with holes. The mattress she slept upon was dirty and lumpy, with mold and fungi growing on the surface.

Her breath made little steam clouds as she tossed and turned. A thin metal blade stuck out of her chest, the runes that were etched into the iron glowing a soft blue. Her hair was messy, and her tail was matted and bushy. A thin layer of dust coated the purple unicorn.

With a long groan, Twilight opened her bloodshot eyes. She breathed hard as she sat up in bed. She held one hoof against her heart, ignoring the blade that pierced it. Her heartbeat pounded against her hoof, and she relaxed as the bright morning sun surged through the open window. She jumped out of bed, but as soon as she did she was met with a horrific sight: her library. The condition of it was horrible. Tomes lay everywhere, gathering dust, and ripped pages lay shrewn across the floor. The wood of the hollow tree lay rotten and cracking, and mushrooms grew everywhere. The only good thing that Twilight could make out was the massively increased amount of books in the library, not only completely filling up the shelves but standing in tall stacks and rough piles everywhere. But when she picked one up, it wasn’t one she recognized. The black cover was ripped and ancient, and it contained no readable text, only page after page of indecipherable ancient unicorn runes. She carefully laid the book down on a stack, and at was then that the blade that lay stuck in her chest began to ache. She looked down, and indeed, the blade was still lodged in her chest. She tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast. As she began to panic, the blade simply disintegrated, sparkling into dust. When it was gone, the wound on her chest had disappeared, as if it was never there in the first place. With the blade gone, Twilight suddenly felt a surge of lethargy rush over her, her stamina rapidly draining. She clutched her chest as a wave of pain surged over her, and her heart beat rapidly and without end. She screamed in pain as blood came out of her eyes, leaked out of her nose, and dribbled down her mouth.

In the Gray Mare’s words, what had just happened was the Destiny Link doing its job. It had cut off a section of Twilight’s Life Thread, and has extinguished it. The fire that Twilight felt in her veins was none other than her body’s attempt to repair the Thread, by mending the broken parts with the nutrients in her blood. The blood that surged out her face contained the dematerialized dust of the portion of the Thread the Link had severed. It was nothing to worry about. At least, if you could take the pain. Twilight could do neither, the Mare observed.

When the blood rush finally ended, there was a sizeable puddle of scarlet blood on the cracked and warped floor, and Twilight was shuddering with fear. She gazed at the pool of fluid, and hyperventilation began to take over. She rapidly turned her head as the library spun around her, and was only able to contain the shock by slamming her head against the fungi-covered wall. As the world stopped spinning around her, she grasped her heart again, and found relief in the fact that it was beating normally. She looked around again at the library, ignoring the rapidly shrinking pool of blood, and searched for something that caught her attention. Something did.

A canyon of books, so to speak, opened between a massive stack. Huge grimoires smashed to the ground, some as large as Twilight, while others larger than what Twilight remembered the library to be. Fortunately, she was uninjured when a book the size of her fell three feet from her tail. A second book nearly took off her head, with the size and shape of a small boulder. The pages and cover were cut that way. She entered the massive gorge, the endless piles of books around her growing taller and taller as she walked down the narrow path.

At the end of the path, she came upon a spectacular sight. Books upon books piled high into the sky, forming a sphere with walls made of nothing but tomes upon tomes of ancient and forbidden knowledge. Twilight’s horn-light could barely illuminate the sphere, but at least she could see. At the center of the room was a small wooden desk, and a pony worked frantically at it, several books open and floating around her. Ten sparks of light illuminated the desk, and the pony writing there took no heed of Twilight’s pitiful light as she crept closer. The armor the pony wore reflected the light of the orbs, and several times they blinded Twilight as she stared right into the light.

When Twilight was only a few feet away from the pony, it looked up from its work.

Twilight gasped. Twilight gasped.*

Twilight looked at herself, writing at a wooden desk in the middle of a room made entirely of books as if that was a normal, everyday occurrence.

“Uh...hello?” she nervously said.

“Oh look. It’s myself. How convenient. I needed a maid to clean up after me, and my good self should fulfill that role nicely.” said Twilight’s doppelganger.

The doppelganger pushed herself back from the desk, her armor gleaming in the light. But just as quickly, it was extinguished.

“Bright side, meet dark side.” said the Anti-Twilight in the darkness.

Twilight quickly ignited her own light, the ball of brightness burning at her horn. It was useless against the dark, as the Anti-Twilight whispered an incantation, and Twilight felt her magic fizzle out and die, and her voice was suddenly removed as the silence took her over.

“Be quiet while I figure out how to end you properly.”

Twilight tried her spell again, but she made nothing. It was true: the silence had become one with her. No sound would escape Twilight: her breath, her voice, her hoofsteps were all silenced. As Twilight galloped around without a sound, she saw a flash of light in the corner of the room. The Anti-Twilight was reading again, searching the walls for the right book. She levitated herself into the air, her magic pulling hundreds of tomes off the walls and throwing them to the ground. After several minutes of searching and several curses as sections of the book wall fell to the ground, the Anti-Twilight finally found the book she had been looking for. She held the black book in front of her, and uttered a few words in an ancient pony tongue. She waited for a few seconds. A few minutes. A few hours seemed to pass before she was tackled from behind by the real Twilight, her light shining bright once more. The Anti-Twilight had accidentally purged the silence from Twilight, and now she was open to her full attack.

Twilight focused her magic, releasing concussive blasts at her doppelganger. She barely dodged the pink bolts, the explosions breaking apart the book wall. More books lay behind them, but, as the explosions burned more and more books, the end of the wall finally appeared. The brown earth that lay beyond the books was hard and cracked, but as the concussion blasts flew wildly around, they blasted huge holes in the earth. One blast broke open the ceiling, and a slab of cobblestone fell onto the floor. A shaft of light shone in, and the dark retreated from its heat.

The Anti-Twilight fired bolts of magic back at the real Twilight, the blasts creating great explosions of arcane fire. The black flame set piles of books alight, the smoke from the flames rising up and out of the hole. The two unicorns traded arcane projectiles, pink concussion blasts soaring past the Anti-Twilight and the real Twilight dodging her doppelganger’s arcane fireballs. The duel continued, tearing down the library and the spherical room, until a huge hole had formed in the ceiling and the ground was covered with the remains of millions of books, burnt, broken, and destroyed. The two unicorns stared each other down, their lavender eyes locked on their own lavender eyes. Both had worn themselves out, both had fully expended their magic reserves. They stood panting, grabbing at traces of breath that still remained. Both had been silenced numerous times, both had felt the sting of a concussive blast, or burned by arcane fire. The light poured in from the hole in the roof, creating a vast pillar of light that encompassed the two ponies and shone on them brightly.

Twilight was done fighting. Her stamina was completely spent; her magical energy reserves were bone-dry. She couldn’t even cast a simple levitation spell if she wanted to. Her doppelganger was equally tired, but she wasn’t done. She was muttering under her breath, or what little of it remained. The darkness began to move as she spoke, and the tired Twilight could not believe her eyes as the dark began to intrude upon the light, blocking it out and forming thick, coiled vines of pure shadow. The chains of dark grabbed Twilight, holding her in place as her tired doppelganger pointer her hoof at her, barely able to hold it afolt. The darkness began to cover the hole over, the wall of shadow blocking out the light except for a single tiny speck in the very center of the room.

The Anti-Twilight trotted slowly over to her bound self, the real Twilight struggling to break the bonds that held her. They were strong, but malleable, unlike the restraints the Reaper had used. Twilight could still struggle. The Anti-Twilight stood in front of her true self, her bloodshot eyes staring into her own bloodshot eyes.

“And...now...” she panted. “You... and I... will...”

The Anti-Twilight barely was able to finish her sentence before a massive lightning bolt hit her square on the head. The electrical blast shook the Anti-Twilight, causing her to convulse and shake as a million volts of concentrated electricity rippled through her body. Twilight watched as the chains that gripped her recede into the blackness... or what was left of it. The shadows burned away as her alter ego burned, and as the lightning razed her so too did the light raze the dark. The ceiling completely collapsed, and the full force of the sun burst in as the lightning intensified, the Anti-Twilight burning with blue fire as the electricity coursed through her body, burning everything and anything inside.

The Anti-Twilight was able to finish her sentence.

“Join....” she croaked.

A blast of light finished off the Anti-Twilight, the electrical current breaking as a mighty beam dropped on the doppelganger and tore the life from her body. The limp body of the Anti-Twilight fell to the ground. A stormcloud flew overhead, and rain began to fall on the battlefield, the water running across the burnt books and putting out the small flames. Lightning burst from the clouds, but none of them hit Twilight. A strong scent of death reeked in the air. It took little guesswork to realize that the clouds were made of ash. The way they constantly moved and turned, the reeking smell, the off-gray of the clouds all pointed to dust. And, just as promptly as they appeared, they were gone. The sun shone through the hole yet again.

Twilight stared at her own dead body as it began to disintegrate with black fire. Suddenly, a burst of energy flew from the body and connected with Twilight. She felt energy returning to her as the soul of her doppelganger became hers, and her own fragmented soul became whole. Light bathed the unicorn as her injuries went to nought, and when the energy tether finally stopped, Twilight, for the first time since she woke, felt normal.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight turned to see the ethereal form of Princess Celestia standing behind her. Her transparent body showed few of her colors, and her mane did not ripple with the same energy. Twilight gasped as she saw the massive slash wound on her forehead, dividing her face in half.

“P-p-princess?” she stammered. “Wha...what are you...”

“What am I doing here? I died. At least, my body did. I no longer inhabit my body, as you too so not. The Reaper. He has returned, just as Candice foretold. He has taken my body and turned it into a perversion of its former self. He wants... he wants to purge the world. We exist because he allows it, and we will end because he demands it. It takes all my willpower to make this ethereal form to speak to you, Twilight. This conversation will have to be brief.

“I can’t talk for long” she said. “So I will have to do some explaining. We are in the Reaper. We exist in his body and spirit. Right now we inhabit his brain, and by destroying the Book Room, you have causing him a raging headache. Well done.”

“In order to stop him,” said Celestia, with Twilight eagerly listening, “we must open something called the Black Gate. It is where the Reaper opened me.” she stroked the black wound on her forehead. “you must reopen the gate, and in reality the wound. It will not be easy. The Reaper will try to stop you at every turn. Do not let him. Reunite the Elements... And free us from this vile world."

Twilight was blown off her feet as the image of Celestia burst into light, returning to the yellow globe that hung over them. Twilight could only watch as the sun grew smaller, until the only light that remained was her own brilliant glow. She walked away, back towards her tree, but then she tripped over something in the road. Gingerly getting up, Twilight turned around to see what it was.

The restored Element of Magic lay on the ground before her, pristine gold holding her pink jewel. Twilight reached down to pick it up, but it floated out of her hands, and landed on her forehead. Twilight felt the extra weight of her crown, as she floated into the air as majestic wings of pure energy sprouted on her back. She flapped her mighty appendages as he horn grew, her mane lengthened, then rippled with energy as she floated into the air. Her heart welled up with happiness as the newborn alicorn flew past the clouds, her luster wearing off as her lavender legs grew longer, her height increased. Twilight flew free among the sky as the wind blew, but it blew with her, lifting her higher and strengthening her flaps as she soared. Twilight let out a round of joyous laughter was she flew.

“Twilight the Pure, your destiny is clear. Rescue your friends from the Reaper, and save all of Equestria from his iron fist. Your power is pure, your courage fierce, and you will live to see Equestria right. Your destiny is here, Twilight Sparkle. Let nothing stop you.”

Twilight shrank back to her regular size as she landed. Her wings at her side, she started to walk. The stars twinkled in the sky as she walked, the winds at her back, pushing her along, supporting her march. She walked as the clouds turned white and the sky became clear. She walked as grass of the plains rippled with light as the moon rose. She marched on, her destiny clear.

She marched into the very essence of the Reaper itself.