“Twilight! Come quick!”

“Ugh… Spike, just be quiet for one second, I MUST finish this treatise on Molecular Incan…”

“No time! There’s a *pause for dramatic effect* NEW UNICORN IN TOWN!”

“It’s not Trixie again, is it?”

“No no no! This one is different! He claims to be the Most Powerful…”

“Um Trixie much? Spike I thought you knew better!” Scolded Twilight, “This is definitely like Trixie! Have you seen him perform AMAZING feats of magic?”

“Um… Yes…”

Now THIS I have to see…

Chapter 2

The town square was crowded with ponies, mares, stallions, fillies and colts, all transfixed to the pony in the center of the cluster. He was a dark, dark blue, darker than princess Luna, with a black, flowing mane, and eyes bright and almost fevered. He talked on, like a prophet or town crier, and all came to listen. As Twilight came closer, she saw his horn.

His horn was not unlike hers, at first glance, but as she drew ever closer, he found it was twisted ever so slightly, in a way that make it look like an obelisk someone turned at the point till it swirled like a corkscrew.

At the front of the crowd, all of Twilight’s friends stood transfixed, and Twilight could hear the words Ursa major, defeat and brave. “Idiots…” Twilight muttered, passing Lyra and Derpy as they watched him in awe. But her friends were no Idiots, as they looked up in growing disgust at the unicorn.

Rainbowdash was the first to crack, Flying up to him though his back was pointedly turned, she yelled, none too politely:

“You, LIAR! How dare you, you’re just as bad as Trixie With your idiotic boasts and tales, your nothing but a pretty boy, your black robes are unsigned from fighting the ‘dragon’ on the way over, or is having your robes be black the way you pitifully disguise your LIES! Come on! Are you man enough for a one on one, or are you CHICKEN!?!”

The unicorn turned, his face inches from hers, and she wheeled back in surprise.

“Yes, I believe I am, as you put it, Man enough. Tell you what, I’ll let you hit me with everything you go, and I’ll put up a shield, and when you lose, I’ll be laughing, silly. Little. Pegasus.”

A collective gasp rose up from the audience, nobody called RD silly, or little. Nobody.

Apparently, Rainbow have the same Idea; “See how you like a… SONIC RAINBOOM in your face!” Another gasp, and a sadistic smile from the unicorn, “Taste the painbow!” Rainbowdash yelled as she rose up to cloud level, then rocketed into the stratosphere.

The unicorn laughed sadistically again, “Yelling to the crowd: “Say Gooood Byeee to dear Rainbowdash!” He smiled at the looks this put ponyville residents’ faces, and the smile was one of a timberwolf. He laughed as RD’s warp cone sharpened and he only stopped when the full sonic rainboom force smashed into him, leaving the square covered in multicolored smoke and dust.

Chapter 3

When the smoke cleared, everyone was expecting to see RD triumphant and the other pony on the floor, begging for mercy, so when the unicorn kicked rainbowdash’s broken body from the crater of the rainboom, nobody said a thing.
“What, no encore? Rude is what you are. Perhaps you should be taught a lesson, like poor… RD.” Sadistic smile, total chaos. Applejack sprang and was hogtied, unconscious from a lamppost, spike and rarity were next, Blasted though the wall of the town hall. Fluttershy put up no resistance, as she was knocked against a wall, senseless. A pulse of magic knocked all the other ponies away leaving only poor Twilight in an apocalyptic limbo. A shadow appeared from the mist, and bent over twilight, saying; ”Dear Twilight, I’ve heard so much about you.” The shadow’s eyes leered at her, “And I’ve waited so long to meet you, it’s almost a shame to kill you. Almost.”

Chapter 4

Needless to say twilight was in shock. Her friends hurt, maybe dead, Ponyville overthrown and a sadistic, mad impossibly evil pony about to kill her.
“Think Twi, Think! What has happened when you’ve overpowered before. Then she remembered Nightmare Moon, and how she had outsmarted her with a teleport.

So she backed up, then charged him, and he charged her, and she teleported just behind him, but he swirled to face her, then his horn glowed a sickly purple and Twilight was lifted off the ground, and brought to face the stallion.
“Oh Twilight, I’m not stupid. I knew you would try that. You’re clever, I’ll grant you that, perhaps too clever, and I should kill you right now.” The magic tightened its hold on her like a vice, “But, I need a messenger to tell dear Celestia that I have returned, and none of your petty little friends are in any condition to help me, and you are the only one… available.”

“What makes you think I’ll help you?!?” Twilight managed to gasp.

The magic around her burned like fire for a second, then she was thrown from its malicious grasp, flying though the air till she hit a wall, slid down to the floor and lay slumped there like she was dead. Darkness ate at her vision, and it wasn’t until a hoof under her chin lifted her face up that she looked what had happened to the sadistic pony.

“To answer your question, you have nowhere to go. Nowhere but to your dear mentor.”

So Twilight ran, and the unicorn called after her: “Run, little twilight, and tell Celestia Incantus has returned!”

Chapter 5

And Twilight ran, and her new enemy laughed his mad, sadistic laugh. She ran, oblivious to the sharp stones cutting at her hooves as she galloped down the road, a road meant for carriages, not for a terrified, scholarly unicorn. Clouds swirled in from behind her, but she didn’t care, for the clouds came from behind, or in her mind, the things she had left behind. Her friends, her home and her life, smashed in one cruel stroke; Incantus’ will. And it rained, all the way to Canterlot, and mud tried to suck Twilight farther into the pit of despair and rue that she had already fallen into. She arrived at the open gates of Canterlot, and ran past its citizens, who turned their noses up at this unicorn, who had such despicable conduct, running through the streets, muddy and disheveled. She ran to the castle, to the princess’, and through tears and gasps for air, recounted her tale to the twin royals of Equestria.

Chapter 6

“This doesn’t make sense…” Muttered Celestia, pacing around the royal Canterlot library and giving Twilight a scene of déjà vu from the last time someone tried to take Equestria into his grasp. But Incantus was more malicious and more willing to hurt than Discord ever was. “I’ve never heard of an Incantus, and he’s not in any of the books here, so why would he act as if he knew me?”

“I don’t know, princess but I suggest we send a team of guards to go find him and take him down.”

“Good suggestion, Twilight, I’ll get right on it.” Saying this, she nodded at the guards outside the door, and the saluted and cantered away.

“Perhaps we missed something,” Continued Twilight, “And maybe… princess?”

Celestia and Luna were looking off at something over Twilight’s head and, to her surprise; she found she was standing almost up to a wall. Suddenly Celestia and Luna screamed in unison, and fell upon the floor, twitching and shuddering as spasms wracked their bodies, their eyes glued shut. “PRINCESS! Omigosh… princess are you alright?! Princess… princess, CELESTIA, LUNA, WAKE UP!” Twilight yelled, distraught. Then she noticed a letter lying on the table in the middle of the library, a table that was empty a second before, a letter that read:

Hello, Twilight. Yes I know you’re there. I just want to check to see that you didn’t break your neck on the way over. It would be such a pity, for I would love to kill you in my own special way… Anyhow, if Celestia and Luna are scaring you with their… condition, don’t worry. I just removed a memory blockage spell. Dark Magic is not particularly pleasant to the… victim. Also, in this envelope, you will find something I took from the Canterlot royal library when I casted the spell. It might shed some light on my current disposition.

No love whatsoever,
Incantus

Inside the envelope was a dusty, crinkled and timeworn scroll, detailing a story, a story that read:

Incantus: a narrative

During the times of old, when Equestria was just founded and the royal capital was not yet named Canterlot and was not a magnificent castle, but a small village, there lived two twin brothers named Incantus and Hexabram. These two were of the royal line of clover the clever and Starswirl the bearded. Thus so, they were unicorns of immense magical power and potential. Though twins, their personalities could not have been more different; while Hexabram was open and friendly to all, Incantus kept to himself. Incantus cared about ponies, but cared more about learning. Hexabram could be found solving problems for the populace: curing plagues, ending droughts and famine and doing work that would have taken weeks in a matter of hours. Incantus, on the other hand, was rarely seen outside, and when he was, his dark aura and black presence led others to believe he was the flipside of his twin’s good personality. Incantus grew irritated, then bitter. Hexabram was too caught up in his work on the council of what now was Canterlot that he never noticed his brother. In fact, nobody noticed Incantus as he sat in his library for years. 500 years later, nobody had seen him in the light of day for over 90 years at least. Tales sprung up and bloomed as they always do when in the fertile soils of mystery. Some said he was an immortal demon, while others said he was simply dead. The former were closer to the truth. Incantus was supposed to be dead, but he wasn’t. He had long since discovered the elixir of life, and had been brewing it ever since his 90th birthday. He was now older than anypony but Luna and Celestia. Soon, he had read all the books in his archaic library, and found his magic was actually stronger than princess Luna’s. He performed a spell of the heavens and lowered the moon, overriding Luna’s supposedly permanent affinity with the moon. This created panic and mistrust of Luna. Luna was younger then, so the repercussions of her “mistake” were not as consequential as if Celestia failed in her raising of the sun but this was not to be tolerated. Incantus was already extremely powerful and had more than half a millennia worth of magical knowledge, but he wanted more. The newly formed Canterlot royal library had forbidden some texts that had lead unicorn mages to trouble before, and they had locked them in a vault sealed with the high council and Celestia’s royal magicians’ magic as to not have to deal with the dark magic these texts taught and illustrated. This vault was supposedly impossible to navigate and the locks impervious to any foreign attempt at entry. Incantus found he could break them as easily as fallen branches break when stepped on. The dark texts were old, archaic and incredibly dangerous. Incantus read and read and read, all the while learning things nopony was supposed to know. He sealed the vault with hexes and wards of shadowy power. The seed of darkness, the source of all malicious magic and intent was slumbering, and Incantus woke it up. The vault laid sealed and nobody, not even the princesses could open it without experiencing excruciating pain. Incantus grew the seed of darkness within him, and this time everypony would fear him, and this time it wouldn’t be without reason.

Part 2 of the narrative

Incantus blew the door open, and the bookshelf in front of it smashed to pieces. The librarians turned and one uttered a pathetic squeak before all of them were telekinetically ripped into chunks of flesh. Incantus laughed his insane laugh, snapped the door off its hinges and walked out into the street. 200 years had passed and now Canterlot was now a castle, but Incantus took no notice, for his one thought was: Killing Celestia will be so much fun! He clopped down the road toward the palace, obliterating anything and anypony in his path. Houses crumbled to ash as he passed and tendrils of energy emanating from his horn lacerated the ponies that came running out of their ruined residences. The guards at the gate reared up in alarm and spread their wings to fly. One scarcely flapped his wings before a column of flame conflagrated his being. The other got about ten feet off the ground before lances of purple light skewered him to the wall by his wings. Incantus ignored the anguished cries of the ponies of Canterlot as the portcullis and gates melted like butter.

Incantus stepped into the courtyard, and was met with a spear in the head. His eyes crossed and he stumbled, then righted himself and pulled the spear from his forehead with his horn, the bone, skin and brain growing back as he did so. He smiled toothily at the stunned guards and then let a conjured scythe tear into their ranks. He continued through the courtyard, delicately stepping through the garden of corpses and blood he cultivated, walked up the corridor, smashing in doors and tearing through the pathetic protection wards Celestia thought would save her. Silly Celestia. Incantus was more powerful than anypony in Equestria now. He stepped into the throne room…

Incantus was impolitely welcomed again, but this time by severe power. From Celestia came solar energy, the pure, raw power of thousands of tones of plasma and gasses, powered by nuclear fusion. The prominences and flares of the sun, the 3000°s of its core was all there. From Luna came the energy of the cosmos: quasars and their radio jets, supernovas and meteoric bombardment. All of this stripped Incantus’s shield and skin away, leaving bones and organs. Celestia and Luna were unfazed, after all, this pony killed their subjects and guards. They were fazed, however, when Incantus’s maniacal laugh rang through his bones. The tracery of blood vessels on his body filled again with blood and new ones grew. Organs grew at multiple times their normal rate, replacing the ones incinerated by the princesses’ magic. The black coat of Incantus grew from the horn downward and soon Incantus and his sadistic grin lived again. Luna retched, but Celestia stood rigid with horror. Incantus twitched, giggled and created a colossal explosion, which blew the princesses apart. Luna smashed against a shelf and the boxes on top crashed unto her legs. Incantus heard a crack. Like breaking branches, thought Incantus. He twitched and dark magic dribbled from his horn and snapped at anything in its range as he sauntered over to Luna. Like an executioner raising a knife to behead. Celestia slammed Incantus into the wall before any heads could roll. The sharp horn was imbedded in Incantus’s lung, but he laughed and chortled in his deranged terribly ethereal voice. Celestia was seeing red, so she didn’t hear when Luna said stop. She stabbed and stabbed Incantus, blood flowing freely. As Incantus twitched and healed, Celestia used the elements and imprisoned him… whatever this is boring…

The story ended there. “Wait… no WAIT there must be something more!” Twilight frantically searched through the folds of the scroll. The only thing she found was another letter, and something about the ornate red seal on it reminded her of blood.

Yeah, okay… so I got bored writing… imprisoning me wasn’t pleasant and I’m not writing about that, but it also made me able to contemplate and get ever stronger. Yeah I went mad, but I’m not crazy anymore, just sadistic and cruel and uncaring and deranged and… I digress. I just want to tell you that Celestia and Luna will wake up soon, but please convey this message:

I’ll kill you Celestia,

And all your guards too.

Heck, I’ll kill EVERYONE

Loyal to you

I’ll tour Equestria,
Killing your subjects on the way,

Just something I thought you’d like me to say.

Prepare to be killed, and don’t try to stop me,

Or I’ll painfully kill Luna for you too see!

Okay? Got that? No… good.

You’ll all be dead in a week,
Incantus

End of submission