The frozen over peak of the mountain stood before Celestia, who had a grim look on her face as she walked towards the top of the mountain. It had been a few centuries since she had last been here, knowing that it was best to stay away from this place. Occasionally she would consider telling the Ambassadors about this place, but she knew that the more who knew about it, the more of a chance somepony would try something. But there was one other pony beside her sister that she could trust with this information. And she was expecting her at any moment.

'Twilight has more than prove that she is able to handle the responsibility of this information,' Celestia thought to herself before she felt herself shiver slightly. 'I just wish that she would be on time a little more often. Especially when I'm freezing my feathers off.'

As soon as she thought this, a flash of violet light went off behind her. Celestia sighed with relief when she turned around to see the princess of friendship walking up to her, a smile on Twilight's face as she approached her mentor. "I was wondering if you would show at all. I've been expecting you for a few minutes."

"Sorry princess, but a small crisis popped up in Ponyville and I had to spend some time dealing with that," Twilight explained.

"When is there ever a small crisis in Ponyville?" Celestia asked with a smile, one that got Twilight to smirk in response. The princess of friendship then began to shiver as the cold of the mountain top began to get to her, telling Celestia it was time to bring Twilight inside. "Follow me, Twilight. There is something I wish to show you."

"I got your letter, but aside from saying this is top secret, there wasn't anything else," Twilight replied.

"And there is a very good reason for that," Celestia replied before she walked up to a large stone spike that stuck out of the ground near the side of a mountain peak. Celestia's horn glowed as she approached the spike, before she pressed her hoof across the top of the spike. The motion drew a bit of blood from the princess, who then mixed her blood with her magic. She tossed the mixture that she had made onto the wall before her and Twilight, before stepping back.

A few moments after her blood and magic hit the wall, the mountain top began to shake as if it was coming alive. Twilight glanced up at her teacher for some kind of explanation, but all Celestia did was glare ahead at the wall. A moment later the wall split down the middle and opened wide, revealing a secret chamber hidden with the mountain. Twilight's eyes widened at the sight before Celestia began to walk forward. Twilight followed her into the chamber, which, aside from another spike, didn't have anything in it.

"Um, was this what you wanted to show me, princess?" Twilight asked. Celestia didn't respond and instead chose to press her hoof against the only spike in the room. This time the action caused a circle of light to appear in the ground, one that made Twilight yelp in surprise. Celestia stepped into the center of the circle of light, motioning for Twilight to do the same. Once Twilight had joined her teacher, the circle of light began to descend deeper into the mountain, bringing the two alicorns with it.

"What I am about to show you cannot be know by anypony else aside from me and my sister," Celestia told Twilight in a no-nonsense tone, which made Twilight chuckle nervously.

"Not even my friends? You know, the ponies that have helped save the world time and time again?" Twilight asked, but a look from Celestia told Twilight the answer. "Okay, what about my sister and brother? Shouldn't those two know about this as well?"

"In time I will tell your friends. Cadence already knows and wanted to tell you herself, but she now has a foal to worry about,," Celestia stated. Twilight decided to stop asking question and shifted from hoof to hoof in place, her nerves starting to get to her. After what felt like an eternity to the purple alicorn, the elevator finally came to a stop. Celestia used her magic to pry open the stone walls in front of them, revealing a massive chamber that was filled with a radiant light.

The chamber was made up and reinforced with a metal the likes of which Twilight had never seen before. All around the chamber flew small butterflies that all shifted colors, as if they changed depending on their mood. And then there were the two giant stone sentinels that stood unmoving, but as Twilight and Celestia entered the room then turned their heads towards the pair.

All of this Twilight took in later. For the moment she was able to look at the room her eyes were glued to the massive sphere of white energy that hung in the center of the room. The sphere was the sixe of a building, with white being its primary color. Yet every once in a while a butterfly would fly into the sphere and a splash of color would spread across the sphere. It would stay there for a moment, before the whiteness took over once more.

The moment Twilight and Celestia stepped into the room with the sphere their horns and bodies began to glow with a magical power the likes of which the princess of friendship had never felt. Twilight had to stop to look down at herself with disbelief, while Celestia walked up to the twin stone beings that continued to stare at her. She stood still as blue light emitted from their eyes and scanned the princess. After a moment of scanning her the two beings sat back down and Celestia turned to Twilight.

"Celestia...where are we?" Twilight asked the princess of the sun, barely able to comprehend what was going on.

"This, my dear friend Twilight, is the greatest secret that has ever been known to Equestria," Celestia said to Twilight, motioning for the princess to join her next to the sphere. Twilight walked over to Celestia's side, unable to take her eyes off of the sphere. "Passed down from father to child, royalty to royalty, this is what we protect in this land above all else. This is what I have brought you here to show you."

"Princess, what is this?" Twilight asked.

"This is the source, Twilight. The source of all magic in Equestria," Celestia said in calm tone, yet despite doing her best to keep Twilight calm her words caused the princess of friendship to nearly explode with excitement.

"The source of all magic?! But I thought that was just a legend, a tale that mothers told their foals whenever they asked where magic came from?" Twilight asked as she took a few more steps towards the sphere, but Celestia held out a hoof and held her back.

"Do not get too close my friend, for if you do the magic may overload your senses and send you into a coma," Celestia warned Twilight, who heeded her mentors words and backed away. "I am showing this to you Twilight because you have shown time and time again that you are one of the strongest, kindest and most trustworthy ponies I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. So I deemed you worthy of sharing with my sister and me in the location of the source of all magic."

"...why now, princess?" Twilight asked Celestia in a tone that told the princess of the sun that Twilight had caught on. "Why tell me now and not sooner? I haven't done anything in recent memory that would convince you if you were on the fence about showing me? What happened?"

"Well, this took a lot of thought and consideration to trust you with something so important," Celestia said to Twilight, who gave her teacher a knowing look. "But you are right as well, there is another reason I have chosen now to show you. Because I have had a vision...or a nightmare, if you will."

"How can you get nightmares when your sister can control dreams?"

"Because Luna likes to mess with me. But no, it is not my sister. It is a nightmare that a force of evil will come and try to take this source of magic from us," Celestia revealed, getting Twilight's eyes to wide in shock. "In my vision I see a demon more powerful than any foe we have ever face ripping through our forces with ease, all to take the sphere of magic from our lands."

"That's horrible princess. Did the vision give you any clue as to what this creature may be?" Twilight asked.

"That is the terrifying thing, Twilight. The vision warned me of a force, but did not give me any images, save for one. All I saw was a monster that cut down any that stood in it's path. A monster with one, red eye. Then I told that this force of death will bring ruin to our land, a ruin so powerful that we will all drown in pools of our own blood and be choked by our own magic. And then, only we are removed from its path, will it steal the life from our world."

"That...is terrifying. But thank you for sharing this with me. I promise that I will do everything in my power to keep this place safe," Twilight said to the princess, who gave Twilight a grateful smile in response. "But this would be easier if I could tell my friends about this place."

"It probably would, Twilight. But some of your friends are more...vocal than I would like them to be. Especially about the location of this place," Celestia told Twilight and instantly the both of them thought about Pinkie and Rainbow Dash. "For the time being we four princesses will have to be enough."

"And we will be. We've fought a king of darkness, a centaur that could steal the magic from the ponies of the land and even beat a god with Discord," Twilight said with confidence. "If we could beat all of those, I don't know what force of darkness could be so powerful that it would be a threat to us. I mean, what could it be?"

/
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\

The sound of boots striking the metal floor was a small comfort to the man walking through an empty warehouse. Normally when he came to a place like this, the sounds of gunfire, shouting and death would block out the sounds of his boots on the floor. That would also mean that either a deal had gone south or that those he had made the deal with were trying to back out on their arrangement. Both ended in murder. The difference is that one of those murders would be personal.

Yet all was silent in the warehouse, telling the mercenary two things. Either this was a trap or the person that he was coming to meet with didn't believe in security. Meaning they were either very foolish or had superpowers. The merc didn't care which it was, as long as they agreed to their end of the bargain.

'Of course, there is always the chance that his men are hidden and are just waiting for their chance to die,' the mercenary thought to himself as he reached the center of the warehouse, looking around to see if he could spy any of the men that might be hidden around him. When he didn't spy any traces of assailants that would be waiting in ambush, he reached up and adjusted his mask so that his one eye wasn't obstructed at all by his helmet.

His armor was made of the strongest material known to man, with numerous explosives, guns and even a sword strapped to his back. The armor was painted black, for stealth when it was needed, but the half of his helmets faceplate with the eye hole was painted orange. He knew that it had the chance to reveal him if he were to be hiding in the darkness, but he also knew that the orange would tell those he was hunting who he was. And he knew that their terror would more than make up for his choice in color for his helmet's face plate.

He spied an open door at the end of the warehouse with a small light coming from within it. The merc walked towards the light, reaching down and grabbing the handle of one of his pistols and was strapped to his leg. He hadn't made it this far in life by being careless and he didn't plan on starting today. In a blur of motion that no regular person would have been able to keep up with the mercenary dashed into the room, pulled out his pistol from its holster and did a sweep of the room before a second had passed. Yet instead of targets for him to kill, all that there was in the room was a single table with a laptop on it.

The mercenary walked towards the laptop and moved the mouse once, causing the screen to come to life and reveal that there was a two way call already going on. There was no image of the person on the other end and they remained silent, but after a moment the mercenary realized that he was supposed to speak first.

"Meet in person, huh?" the mercenary asked the person on the other end.

"Forgive me if I take some precautions in our meeting, but your reputation precedes you, Slade Wilson," the voice on the other end spoke in a garbled manner. Slade knew instantly that they were hiding their real voice and that if he were to try and track them through the computer, he would get no results. "I figured it would be better for the both of us if we kept this meeting...strictly business."

"Does that mean you are a man that I may one day find myself hunting?" Slade asked the person on the other end.

"Let us just say that I want to stay anonymous for the time being. But you are not here to talk about me. You are here to talk about a job," the voice replied, before other pages opened up on the computer. Slade took a moment to look over the information, before a frown formed under his helmet and he crossed his arms. "I have something that I need you to find. Something that is in another world, a word that, sadly, I would not be able to find it in. That is why I need you. That is why I need the greatest mercenary in the world."

"A world filled with colorful, tiny horses if this information you have here is correct," Slade added on. He wasn't phased at all by there being a world with talking, magical horses. He'd dealt with weirder. What bothered him was the fact that these creatures looked harmless enough. Yet the person on the other end was hiring him, someone who dealt with some of the most dangerous jobs out there. The person on the other end was leaving something out.

"Yes, a strange world to be sure, but I assume that that will be of no trouble to you," the person on the other end said. "After all, I don't thin anything should be a problem to the man who beat the bat. Unless of course, you do not wish to take this job?"

Slade considered saying no. There were too many secrets about this job and people that chose to keep a lot of information close to the chest were the kind of people that would most likely end up in Slade's crosshairs. But then he flashed a glance at the price that had been put forward for completing this job and found that it was more than his past four jobs combined.

"Why the extra pay?" Slade found himself asking. "What do you care whether or not I kill the creatures of this land?"

"I do not wish to have their blood on my hands, even if you would be the one drenched in their blood," the person on the other end replied. "I am a businessman, not a killer. And while you may be known for you...homicidal tendencies, I know that you love money over all else. So will this extra pay convince you to be a little more...restrained?"

"Yes, this will suffice. However, if they do threaten my life I will defend myself with lethal force," Slade warned.

"Fair enough. Take this laptop with you. It will have all the information you need when you reach the other world," the voice said. "Also, I have taken the liberty of preparing you a transport that will be able to take you to the other world. You will find it just underneath of the warehouse. Instructions are inside. Find me what I want...and you'll be richer than you can imagine."

"Well that may be a problem," Slade said before he reached up to close the laptop. "For I have a very active imagination. But just to ask. Are you certain I am the person you want on this job?"

"Am I certain? You are Slade Wilson. The Terminator called Deathstroke. I have no doubt you will get this job done. That's what you do best."