"So this is one of the buggers that have bothered us," Princess Luna said as she looked into the small jar at the creature of darkness, which was currently slamming itself against the side of the glass in an effort to escape. "It is hard to imagine that one of these could be so deadly. I am impressed that you managed to capture it, Discord."

"It wasn't easy, I can tell you that," Discord said in a bored tone as he looked at his nails, before casting a glance at the jar from the corner of his eyes. "That thing there is linked to darkness and is constantly being pulled back to it. It's taking a good chunk of my magic to keep it from slipping away."

"Then it is a good think you joined me in my battle with the beings of darkness," Thor said with a laugh before he clapped Discord on the back, nearly hurling the god of chaos across the room. Thor then picked up the jar and glared at the creature within, getting it to cower slightly under the gods gaze. "But now comes the hard part. Getting this beast to talk about who is in control of them. Talk beast, or I will rend your soul from this realm."

The beast responded by roaring back at Thor, though with the jar separating the two of them it's cry of rage was done in silence. Thor glared in reply before Discord took the jar from him, placing it upon a table that took up the center of Celestia's room. Thor place Mjolnir upon the table and crossed his hands, glaring at the jar while thinking of all the ways he could get the beast to talk. He came up with none.

"God Discord, I am afraid that once more I must ask thee to aid me," Thor admitted after a moment of silence, getting Discord to raise an eyebrow at the god of thunder. "Brute force will not get this beast to talk. It will slip into the shadows before I can get so much as a whisper out of it. I will require your more tricky magic in discerning any information from this creature."

"Well, since you asked so nicely, I'll think about it," Discord said with a smirk before he glanced down at the creature trapped within the jar. "But sadly I do not think I can aid you here. I've trapped it. I can't make it talk. I don't even know if it can talk."

"But we have capture one of them. That's a start," Celestia said as she begun to get her horn to glow, keeping in glowing for a moment before she ceased her spell. "I have summoned Spellbinder. If anypony here will know how this creature will work it will be him. I hope that he arrives here soon."

"He's a maniac on this subject. He will learn to fly if he has to," Luna said with a chuckle before she looked at both Thor and Discord. "But I must admit that I am surprised to see you of all beings working with the god of Equestria, Discord. I thought that you wanted nothing to do with us and simply wanted to freeload at Fluttershy's?"

"What, am I going to tell this guy no?" Discord asked as he jerked his thumb at Thor. "Besides, if HE needs my help then it was clear that it was serious. But if you could deal with these so easily Thor, I fail to see why they are a threat to us."

"Aye, to me there are no threat. But I am not the one they are after," Thor replied with a sigh as he stared out the window. "These beasts are hunting for something. What it is, I know not. But their patterns, their methods...they are all too familiar. That is why to sooner we can hunt down that which is controlling them, then we can put a stop to them."

Before the conversation could continue, the door to the room was kicked open and Spellbinder raced into the room. A massive smile was on his face as he pushed his glasses up his nose, glancing at the four beings with nothing but hunger and excitement in his eyes. "I heard that you managed to catch one of the beasts of darkness! Where is it?!"

Thor motioned to the table and in a split second Spellbinder was at the table, glancing into the jar with wide eyes and an awed look on his face. The beast of darkness had given up trying to escape its jar and just lay in the center of the jar, glaring at the gods and princesses. Spellbinder ripped open a book and began to look between it and the creature of the dark with blinding speeds, before he glanced up at the princesses with a stern expression.

"So what did you call me for? How to dispose of the creature? How to make it vanish for good?" he asked as he picked up the jar and tossed it to Discord, who caught it.

"Neither. We were wondering if there is a way to make this creature tell us who is controlling it and where they are," Celestia told the stallion, who narrowed his face as he opened another book and began to scroll through it.

"Sombra's notes have nothing on them talking. But apparently the creatures, if they can be controlled, will return to their master if they feel threatened," Spellbinder told the four, but his face was grim. "Unfortunately, unless you can travel through the darkness yourself, you cannot follow them. So at the moment I recommend we keep this in the jar."

"I see. Well, at least we've learned that they can be controlled. Lord Thor, you believe that they are hunting for something. Would you be able to take a guess at what it might be?" Luna asked Thor, who shook his head with a sigh once more.

"Nay, it could be any number of things. At the moment all I can assume is that they are hunting something that would allow their master to defeat the princesses and me."

"That is ridiculous, there is no power in the world that can give anypony the power to equal the princesses, let alone Thor," Spellbinder said with a laugh and a shake of his head, before he realized that the two princesses and Discord shared a dangerous look. "Unless...there is?"

"Spellbinder. I know I just called you, but you must give us a moment," Celestia said.

"Of course, Celestia," Spellbinder replied, before he found Discord giving him a look. "Is something the matter?"

"You and I are going to have a talk later. In private," Discord said in a low voice to the pony. Celestia held up a hoof to cut him off before her horn began to glow. A moment later she, Luna and Discord found themselves standing in a library that was filled with books, all of them covered in dust and cobwebs.

"Sister, why are we down in here? And where is Lord Thor?" Luna asked.

"I thought I had teleported him as well. I guess that his godly power prevents him from being teleported by me," Celestia assumed. Discord tore a hole in space and time next to him, allowing Thor to step from Celestia's room into the library. Spellbinder looked at the portal with wistful eyes before the portal closed in front of him. Once Thor was with them, Celestia walked to one of the walls in the back and pressed her hoof against it.

"There is a way to match your power, isn't there?" Thor asked, getting Discord and the princesses to share looks with each other. "And that is what is kept in here, isn't it? The secret to obtaining the power of a princess?"

"No, Lord Thor. In here is a clue to obtaining the power of a god," Luna corrected as the wall of stone melted away, revealing a chamber that was lit with a green light, which was being generated by a green book that floated by itself in the center of the room. With what almost felt like reverence, Discord, Celestia and Luna approached the book, while Thor walked right up to it without any fear.

"What did thee mean obtaining the power of a god?" Thor asked Celestia and Luna, the former of the two sighing as she took the book in her hooves. The moment she did so a power flooded through the chamber, a power that made all except for Thor shake slightly.

"In here is the secrets to obtaining the power of a god, to become one akin to that of Faust," Celestia revealed as she opened the book, revealing numerous words and symbols that Thor didn't recognize, yet Thor was able to read them with ease. He took the book from Celestia and flipped through it a bit, smirking after reading what it had to say. "With this book, and the right place, a pony can go from a mortal to a god. That is why this book is far better hidden than any other magical item in the land...including the Elements."

"Aye, what you say is true. In here is indeed the ability to turn a being into a true god," Thor agreed before he closed the book and handed it back to Celestia, who gingerly took the book and placed it back within the center of the room. "But thou also said the right place, did you not? What is this place you speak of?"

"We...do not know," Discord answered for the princesses, getting the three to look over at him. Discord shook the being in the jar for a moment before he continued speaking. "All we know is that there is a place that goes with the book, but it is unknown to all of us. Faust...in the time she stopped me before Celestia and Luna were forced to, told me that she hid it from me, so that I could not use it to become a true god. She did not tell Celestia and Luna either, apparently."

"What does thou mean, a true god?" Thor asked Discord, eyeing the beast in the jar with narrowed eyes.

"I'm...godly in my creation. I am not a god by divine right, I was created to be one," Discord admitted with a sigh. "I'm not getting into my backstory, don't care to, but I was created to be the ultimate god. One that could bend space and time at whim and do whatever he pleased. My creator...got most of what they wanted. They got the god...but the power, for a time, cost me my mind. Over the years I regained most of it, but I still am slightly...off."

"Yet with the book and the alter, as we call it, I could gain the true godhood that my creator wished for me to have, allowing me to rival or maybe surpass the other gods of this land...and perhaps even you, Lord Thor," Discord said with a smirk to Thor, who replied with an expressionless look.

"...so in order to obtain the power of true godhood, one must have both this alter and the book," Thor muttered to himself, getting Discord to nod. Thor then reached out with his hand and grabbed the jar from Discord, holding it in his hand for a moment before the jar was consumed with lightning, incinerating the beasts within and shattering the jar.

"Thor! That was our only lead to whoever is controlling the shadow beasts!" Celestia reminded Thor, who was brushing the glass off of his hand.

"True. Yet that beasts was also the only one that has seen the book," Thor replied before reaching out and grabbing hold of the chamber walls, slamming them shut with his godly might. He then muttered words under his breath and fused the walls together with his lightning. "Meaning that it was the beast that had seen all that their master needed to become a god."

"Wait Lord Thor, are you suggesting...?"

"Aye, I have found another piece in this absurd puzzle," Thor said as he walked past the princesses and Discord, glancing around the room with thunderous eyes. "Why would the beasts of darkness be out in such number? Why would one of them be so easy to catch? They had avoid Discord for this long, surely they could avoid him again? Unless one of them wished to be captured."

"Wait, it allowed itself to be captured to learn the location of the book?" Celestia asked with some confusion. "But how would it know that we would not simply destroy it?"

"Do you usually destroy thy foes?" Thor asked and Celestia's silence answered for her. "And also, the master knows that we are desperate for information, so we would not risk killing the only shadow beasts that we have captured."

"I...suppose that makes sense," Discord admitted, glancing over at where the book was hidden.

"Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps all I have done is destroy our only lead on the master," Thor suggested. "But that is a risk that I will not take, not with your lives. For the time being I will have to search the old fashioned way and hope that we discover where the master is. And I pray that I am wrong and that the master has not found the alter. For if he has..."

"Um, Thor? Quick question. If you're a god, who do you pray to whenever you're at the end of your rope?" Luna asked, getting Thor to look at her with a dark look in his eyes.

"If Thor is at the end of his rope, Princess Luna, then he will pray to whoever is still alive."

{([])}

"I hope you know that you have made a grave risk in calling us together," Rose said with a hint of annoyance to Janis, who growled at her under his mask before he regained his composure. The goddess of the zebra's looked around the dark room with a look of annoyance on her face. "And I also notice that we are missing one of our number. Where is the god of the dragons?"

"You know that he will not bother himself with any affair outside of his own land if the threat is not greater than him," Toraxo spat in reply with a cross of his arms. "And after hearing you out, I wish I had done the same. You wish for us to unite, for the first time in the history of this world, against Thor? Thor of all gods?"

"Of course against Thor. Have none of you been paying attention to what has been going on since his arrival? The world has already changed!" Janis roared at the other two gods, but neither of them took his words seriously. "His power, his strength...they are not a power we can match individually. But together-"

"Feh, I do not care what you think. And I think even less of your plan," Toraxo said with a chuckle before he turned to leave the chamber. "I will deal with Thor and those that believe in him as I see fit. Soon, all Thor will be is another missing god in Equestrian lore. Just like all the others."

"Toraxo-" Janis tried to say, before the god of the changelings vanished in a flash of fire. Janis let out a growl before he looked over at Rose, who had a thin smile on her face.

"What did you expect? The gods do not work together. We barely work at all," Rose said as she began to fade away. "Take my advice and leave Thor to his own devices. In time, all will work itself out."

Janis watched as Rose vanished, waiting until she was gone before he let his mask flip around and allow the other side to take over. "They are all fools," Sinaj said with a growl, one that shook the chamber with his power. "Thor is the greatest threat that we have ever faced!"

"I do not know why I bothered. They have never cared for anything but themselves," Janis replied as his fury reached a point that it have never reached, but a cold thought suppressed the rage for a moment. "But perhaps, if the gods of this world will not aid me in striking down Thor," he whispered before looking towards the heavens, at the millions of stars above them.

"Then the gods within the heavens will."