Evening
March 21st, 71 BNM
Equestria, North midland mountains
Citadel, lower basements
Catacombs, underground lake.

Blue and Grey flares lit up the cavern like twin stars in battle against each other. Both powers colliding, burning in as much desire to end this conflict now as their unleashed power conveyed. The cavern shook with each collision of power and will in long awaited conflict.

The waters surged from below Starswirl as he was flung across the cavern’s chamber, his blue magic hovering him a protective sphere to a standstill above the black waters. A thousand hungry leeches, imbued with demon harvested magic, snapped at the Unicorn a mere 5 feet above the water.
Up above, a grey wave of energy, like a slicing sword blow from above, surged from the bridge, upon which Siral stood, his horn glowing a fierce grey as he prepared to smack Starswirl into the hungry lake below.
Grey ‘arm’ met Starswirl’s shield, rippling magic like hot magma streaming off as he kept himself just on the lake surface with the impact. The gnashing mouths of the enhanced leeches made his lower shield flicker with strain, but before long, Starswirl saw a way around. With some magic on his end, he levered the arm pressing on his forcefield around, deflecting it to slide past into the water with a boiling splash and freeing him to fly back up in retaliation.
Soaring up into the upper ceiling of the chamber, Starswirl dodged a few high powered grey pulses from the Wizard, as his blue magic fired back towards the central ceiling.
Stalactites that hung from above were shattered, a few large ones directly above the bridge walkway that Siral stood upon beginning to fall. Down below, Siral’s grey magic pushed the massive stone meteors aside to land in the waters below, his magic shattering the last one altogether and floating its fragments in the air as weapons for use. Without pause, Siral’s grey magic sharpened the fragments into rocky daggers, and fired them at the floating Wizard higher above in the chamber.
Weaving in midair, Starswirl was engulfed in some dust as the projectiles shattered on the ceiling behind him. The Wizard was fixated on the source of the projectiles, and with a charging of his barriers, he flew down at full speed, headlong into the last projectile inbound.
Hurling the last rock projectile, Siral saw it shatter on impact, but something shining blue surge through its debris. Instinctively, Siral’s shields went up, the amulets shining in their white and yellow gems to give him more strength at a faster rate, as he also fired a grey beam at the shielded Unicorn.
Like a hurled catapult round, Starswirl smashed into Siral’s own shield, the beam dispersing as easily as sprayed water by his speed and magic strength. The Grey Wizard’s shield held, but the bridge buckled under the impact, that part he stood on crumbling to begin Siral falling towards the water beneath it.
As time seemed to slow, Starswirl turned to the midair Siral, caught off guard momentarily, as he fired a powerful blue magic beam right at the grey shield, dropping his shield for more power. Still engulfed in his shield, Siral yelled aloud as he was thrust down by the beam with a large splash, into the depths of the lake he’d populated with horrors for his prisoners to be executed by.
Not waiting around, Stasrwirl used his magic to fly back onto the bridge, his hooves clacking as he took a moment to catch his breath while the waters churned below.
Turning around with his breathing calming down now, Starswirl mused aloud:
“I know you can handle more than that Siral…”

Sure enough, the waters broiled beneath him, as a grey shimmering mass came up. And there was Siral, perched on top of a roiling pillar of water kept intact by his magic, as if it were solid to his hooves. Inside the black water platform and pillar beneath, the leeches swarmed.
“They know better than to harm me. I have all the home advantages here Stasrwirl, yet even without them you are no match for my power.”
“Power not earned, you’ve become a hypocrite, using Alicorn magic for your own ends!”
“Their power is used more responsibly under my authority, what I disliked was the ambition and arrogance that came with being born with that power, or acquiring it with little sacrifice compared to the great Wizards and Mages of past times...”
“So you are jealous of them, is that it? You make them suffer because you envy their might?”
“Suffering is the greatest teacher there is, be it a long life of work like you and I, or the addition of personal experiences at their hooves.”
Siral gestured to his scarred visage as he spoke, whilst he then gestured to the amulets he wore:
“Besides, why envy those whose power I can now so easily take for myself?”
“And how many more have to suffer and die, Alicorn or not, before your ambitions are achieved?” Starswirl accused, as Siral gave a brief pause before he remarked coldly:
“Equestria, the world, existed reasonably peacefully enough before Alicorns came to be. Does that suffice as an answer, old friend?”
Siral’s venomous answer was all Starswirl needed to hear, as he replied to the Grey Wizard who had been hovering closer on his watery pillar the whole time:
“My old friend is dead. The Wizard before me is as much a monster as the beings that serve you.”
Siral frowned at this, a very small part of him deep down actually hurt by this. A small part, that was buried beneath all his ambitions, desires, and sense of duty to what he must do.
“Your old friend died at that Alicorn’s hooves in the jungle so long ago…”
Siral’s ultimate sore spot, his torture at the hooves of Geldrath in the jungles, whilst Starswirl was busy searching for him in the demon plagued jungles with the exemplar to be of honesty, the tigress Nahia.
Now, Siral was within a few metres of Starswirl’s face, at which point, blue flared once again.
A blue pulse sent Siral flying backwards into the far chamber wall, his blue shield stopping him from being crushed on impact. The watery pillar he stood on was flung at Starswirl like a writhing snake as he went back, as the Wizard backstepped and flung a scything magic arc to cut the water and leech filled creature asunder.
Water and the wounded leeches spilling off the bridge, Starswirl turned to see Siral’s grey magic flare, as all around him the cages and chains that had held prisoners before glowed grey.
Chains snapped as the cages shrieked with warping metal, flying at Starswirl from all sides. In a flash of blue, Starswirl had teleported, the impact echoing in the chamber.
Appearing in midair, Starswirl flew toward Siral, a blue beam blasting Siral’s own shield sphere with enough force to begin burrowing it into the rock he was pressed into. The dark cavern lit up in blue and began to rumble with the force of the attack.
Pouring more energy into the attack, Starswirl felt the beam suddenly surge, as Siral’s shield collapsed.
But surging up his bright blue beam was a dark shape, and out from the top of the beam right before his eyes popped Siral, glowing a darker black colour and his body scars actually turning a toxic black as well, looking more monster than Unicorn as his grey wizard cloak had turned ragged now.

Point blank, Siral’s dark magic fired into Starswirl’s face, a large explosion of energy rocking the chamber as Starswirl was flung backwards, splashing into the lake below with a rising steam and vanishing beneath the inky depths.
Not wasting a moment, Siral rose up, a roar leaving his mouth as his dark magic surged, his yellow and white amulets glowing fiercely as their Alicorn sapped powers gave him strength to keep going.
Large clawlike fingers of dark magic shot from Siral’s forelegs as his horn glowed darker than the blackest void, scything through the water to try and catch Starswirl, even as the leeches began to writhe towards the hidden Unicorn.
In the waters however, a large blue sphere exploded, forcing water away as the Unicorn reemerged, stood on the lake’s bottom with all water and the leeches forced away in a sphere. Leaping up from the base of the lake, Starswirl didn’t see the black scythe like arm come from the side, smashing into his blue shield like a bat to a ball.
Rocked from the impact, his shield barely holding as he crashed into the far wall, Starswirl tumbled down onto a rocky ledge 10 feet above the waters, his shield failing as he staggered to his knees, regaining his senses as the dark wizard charged at him like a black meteor in the lake chamber’s depths.
Looking at the incoming Wizard, Starswirl made a decision. This was hopeless, unless something came up, head on attacks weren’t working.
With a choice made, Starswirl fired his blue horn one more time, but this time a blinding blue flash lit up the room, Siral’s eyes dilating massively as the burst of light filled the room.
As the light faded, his focus diminished somewhat, Siral crashed into the wall, no other Unicorn present, his shield failing at the end to leave Siral clambering out of the slight crumbled hole in the chamber wall he’d made, his horn still glowing black with dark magic, and his legs and body glowing black along his scar shapes.
“A flash and dash move? Cowardly, but smart I will grant you Starswirl!”
Coming to slowly hover around to the bridge, Siral set his hooves on its length, scanning the chamber with a bright grey spotlight from his horn, his dark magic fading slightly as the battle rush wore off.
Wandering through the chamber’s length along the bridge, looking around the whole time for any sign of Starswirl, Siral magically hovered over the halfway section of the viaduct bridge, past metal fragments where he’d used the cages and chains to attack Starswirl.
“If you have this much power, why bother with the other 7 beings you’ve forged? Or is it 6, your 7th little pot has no markings on it…”
Starswirl’s voiced echoed all around the chamber, at which Siral’s eyes narrowed. Invisibility, coupled with any spells to hide his location. Scanning the room slowly in more than just his spotlight, Siral replied to the echo:
“They are forces as much as I am, some different, but powerful nonetheless. Of course you saw the work of a mere 3 of them in Canterlot I wager…”
“If they’re so powerful, is that why have I sensed only one here right now? Why you have been amassing power? Have you bitten off more than you can chew with them?”
Siral shook his head, laughing aloud as he realised what Starswirl’s game was, stopping on the bridge as he began to sense where Starswirl seemed to be coming from, in more ways than one.
“I have no need to fear any of them, nor will I ever. They have no reason nor gain from rebellion against me, and their enhancement can be as easily unmade as it was made.”
“So you are prepared to bring them down if they rebel? Hardly trusting your servants, are you?”
“It is called covering all possibilities, any wise strategist does it. Unlike Alicorns, they at least appreciate their gifts.”
“Gifts engineered to make them living weapons for your cause I presume?”
“You always were skilled in assumption Starswirl, but if you are trying to turn the one here against me you are out of luck. She is the one I entrust most, a pupil of my former academy, whom your little fishy friend you left in Everfree forest has met twice now…”
“And what of the others? I can’t assume they are all so loyal and connected to you in their pasts…”
“Souls impacted by the war, by Alicorns, or by sympathy to these souls themselves. I made sure to find those who would be motivated to aide my cause, even if they needed a little push in the right direction…”
Silence reigned in the chamber, as Siral glanced around to the front entrance. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a green eyed figure peering from the Citadel end’s tunnel mouth, as Teal Quirt had remained hidden this entire time, her scorpion/ape torso body huddled inside the tunnel.
“Your servant is near, I sense her. She has the blood of one Alicorn I knew myself, King Nova’s blood, on her hooves. He didn’t deserve to die like that…”
“Why do you defend Alicorns? What have they done to earn your trust as a collective race? They’re infighting and warmongering are a product of their traits, I had nothing to do with that! You come after me as if I am the instigator when you serve the ones that started it all! I merely became an active agent, influencing the situation to get the desired outcome!”
Scoffing loudly, Siral murmured lowly, his voice carrying up to the ceiling, where Starswirl was invisible, hovering amidst a small fissure in the ceiling.
“Yet if I recall, on our very first meeting with a so called exemplar being of yours, you opposed my intervening in ‘destiny’.”
He and the hidden Siral recalled the Romane Empire era, and Siral influencing officials to have the gladiatrix earth pony Mashri fight her brother, the one who was the cause of her imprisonment by him betraying her trust. It brought out her loyalty display, but Starswirl had not approved. Never again did any of them directly intervene out of choice.
“Every being we meet, we influence their lives. You consider yourself a slave to destiny, you think things will always play out as foretold and you must conform to what you perceive as destined. That is your problem Starswirl, you cannot be a true protector of Equestria if you serve those that are part of the problem itself. Have you not felt what experiments your Royalists are conducting? The slight changes in how the moon and sun move?”
Silence, at which Siral took it as an inability to refute it. Continuing on, Siral spoke bluntly, as he sensed exactly where Starswirl was right now, mentally signalling to Teal Quirt inside the tunnel to get ready.
Inside the tunnel, her form’s powering up in a green glow, she remained hidden, as she sensed the Wizard’s attentive senses draw to her from above somewhere in the cavern.
“The Nationalists will find out, they’ll want it for their own use, and the world will become as much a slave to their will, as you are to them. You once called me friend, but how could I have been blind, to have ever befriended somepony as blind as you. I will NEVER submit to any Alicorn, and anypony who upholds their undeserving godhead status among mortals is a similar case. And if they will not change themselves, and I suspect you came here knowing this, I will ensure no Alicorn sleeps soundly ever again. With the help of all I have gathered, I will make Equestria, and the World, in harmony again, and I will do so, ATOP THEIR BONES!”
With a flurry of rage, Siral flared out a scythe like blast of black magic, detonating in a long chain across the roof. Smoke and light filled the cavern as the blast echoed in a deafening volume, while a glowing blue form shot towards the tunnel in an escape attempt.

Flying through the smoke, Starswirl saw the tunnel ahead, and his expression turned to a glare as he saw the scorpion/ape hybrid thrust out her dragon arm hued in green magic, clotheslining the Wizard mid-flight to go crashing into the hallway just behind her.
Smoke and dust rumbled from the main hall as Starswirl staggered to his feet, head spinning and in agony from the magic infused blow that took out his shields. Gaining his senses, he saw a green hued blast fire at his head, and in a blue flash he teleported to the side of Teal Quirt’s attack.
Spinning, Starswirl fired a barrage of spells at the creature, her scorpion lower body throwing up her pincers to form a green shield, while her 2 dragon arms pointed at him, the 4 horns on her head glowing a toxic green as a 6 pronged blast formed into a single large beam that hit Starswirl head on.
The green flash utterly overwhelmed the exhausted Wizard, as Siral’s voice echoed in a magic infused screech into the hall:
“Make him bleed, he will contribute to the last part of…No, not here…”
Over the ringing in his head, Stasrwirl head a scuttling, as Teal Quirt had quickly dashed to him, legs rearing up against the wall with her speed, her Dragon arms engulfed in green as both grabbed Starswirl by the shoulders to slam him into the stone walls, earning a cry of pain from the Wizard as her face turned confused for a moment.
“What was that Siral?”
“….I told you to keep him away! Gaudium is here!”
With a set of widening eyes, Teal turned to Starswirl, squirming in her draconian strength grip. Eyes bulging slightly, Stasrwirl wheezed out:
“So he is the Sev-ARGHHH!”
With a wrenching yell, Starswirl felt Teal Quirt thrust out one of her lower body’s scorpion pincers to clamp its sharp ends into his rear left leg’s thigh, clenching so the serrated edges pierced the skin to inflict heavy slicing into his limb, her green magic on her body making it burn all the time as well.
“You came her to kill us? I consider this payback for what your little fish fiend did to me, twice!”
She made sure the claw she had deep in Stasrwirl’s thigh hurt him as much as possible.

Back inside the main catacomb lake chamber, Siral had turned, seeing Gaudium come flying down on his blue wings, his red eyes ablaze with a fire he hadn’t seen before. The black Wizard saw rage all over Gaudium’s face.
“I and Teal must have missed your presence as I dealt with Starswirl, my mistake. I presume you heard my exchange then?”
Gaudium was deathly silent, the light brown Alicorn coming to stand before Siral, as Starswirl’s screams echoed form the hall beyond by Teal Quirt’s torture of his thigh wound.
“You’re killing Alicorns in your goals? That is what you want? What about me, what about Ave-Dol? Is that why she’s so hurt, why she’s ‘on holiday’, because she found out about all this? What other lies have you been telling me all this time!?”
Siral looked at Gaudium, weighing his options. A dark look crossed the Wizard’s face, knowing he had no choice, no way to spin this to the youthful Alicorn stallion before him. But this wasn’t a lost cause, only in uninfluenced loyalty was there no more to be had.
“She is soft hearted, useful with her naivete. Just as you are, you were useful for your creativity, and how disconnected from the usual paths Alicorns take to become blights on existence itself. Outliers among a problem race, who I took under my guidance.”
“I came here because my family is dead, I had nowhere else to go! Ave-Dol came here of her own volition, though I’m guessing you lied to her about what you really have us do! Teal, Golmov, Odi, they’re weapons! Iena and Satio, you have them as insiders within the Nationalist leadership family’s home!”
“Being as you are now; it is certainly better than your prior existence. Unlike your parents and siblings, I view you as highly useful. They didn’t know what they were missing in pushing you aside, but I did.”
At that moment, a very loud screech sounded from Starswirl, but amidst its echoes, Gaudium’s expression turned to utter horror as he put two and two together.
“You, you killed them…my family…”
“Seeing as the truth is the only path… yes. Or more appropriately, my Servant did. While the others were busy with skirmish tasks elsewhere at the time, Teal Quirt was very helpful in the Trottingham incidents. They did not suffer for long under her power.”
At that precise moment, a blue flash flared above them, as Siral leapt aside with Starswirl crumpling onto the bridge behind them, sliding to the edge and hanging on with his two good forehooves.
Seeing Starswirl barely hanging on nearby, Siral paid little heed to the uncontrollable Gaudium nearby, the light brown Alicorn’s blue wings flaring as his rage finally broke.
“HOW MANY OF THE OTHERS LIVES HAVE YOU RUINED!?”
A burning curse shot from Gaudium’s horn, raw power but not refined, to which Siral dispersed as easily as a cloud of smoke, his form turning to a black vapour before Gaudium before it surged towards the young Alicorn stallion, solidifying into the scarred Wizard’s form before he fired a spell into Gauidum’s face with a few last words, a last bitter insult to Gaudium before he was subdued painfully with a powerful curse:
“Your last free thought will be regret of becoming my enemy…”
Black engulfed the Alicorn, sending him flying backwards with a howl of agony.
Behind Siral, as he focused on Gaudium, Starswirl desperately scrambled onto the bridge, some blood dropping from his left rear thigh as he limped away, his blue horn charging ready to go.

As Starswirl continued to screech, the Wizard powered up a blue beam out of reaction, to which Teal Quirt’s dragon arm pressed into his head to crush his skull. Yet in a flash of blue, as Teal’s own green magic fought to stop him, he teleported from her grip with a scorching hot flash, sending Teal tumbling against the hall’s wall roughly.
Seething, she turned to scramble into the main hall, her scorpion legs flailing in their steps as she rounded, hearing a screech from Gaudium up ahead:
“How many of the others’ lives have you ruined!?”
But as soon as she entered the bridge’s view, she saw Siral hurling Gaudium towards her, his light purple magic overwhelmed by Siral’s own black magic. Scraping painfully along the stone floor, his body bristling with restraining black magic, Siral bellowed to Teal Quirt from the bridge:
“Take him away!”
But behind him, the grey Wizard glowed blue as he limped, and Siral span to fire a black spell at the Wizard, missing as Starswirl vanished in a blue flash of light. As the sound of the last spell hitting the wall at the lake cavern’s far end echoed, Siral’s own howl of rage filled the air.
From up in the caverns, a few Citadel guards came scrambling to the balconies, whilst to many others beyond, Siral’s rage fuelled command went beyond the cavern:
“Destroy the Grey Wizard!”
As a few distant rumbles began to grow in frequency, Teal Quirt saw Gaudium stare up at her, eyes alight with betrayal and rage, and the pain from Siral’s dark shackles on his body.
With a scowl at how things had taken a turn for the worst, Teal Quirt scuttled along on her scorpion legs, her green magic emanating from her 2 dragon hands and 4 horns on her ape/horse head hovering the light brown and blue winged Alicorn stallion behind her.

Citadel, lower levels
Dungeon chambers

“I wish things hadn’t turned out this way, but I believe in this vision. Enough to deceive you, as nice a stallion as you are.”
“Starswirl is right, you are a monster…”
Teal Quirt stopped, as she’d been hovering Gauidum behind her without more than her scowl. Now, she hovered him around in front of her, her draconic arm wrenching his restrained head to face her from upside down:
“I would kill you now, if it were not for the fact that once you are turned, you will not have any memories of your life at all. I will be superior to what you’ll become in one way, I will have my mind intact…”
Gaudium’s expression turned to stark horror as he was hovered towards the dungeon cell halls, Teal Quirt’s green grip keeping him locked as a cell prepared to hold any high magic powered individuals lay ahead, in a very dark corridor.
It would be one of Gaudium’s last memories.

Catacombs, lake chamber

The guards dispersed themselves around the lake chamber with magic or ropes to begin repairing the destroyed viaduct bridge segment, keeping the leeches away and making sure the sea serpent didn’t even come out of its cave.
Standing, seething atop the bridge, Siral glared at the bridge surface. Starswirl had gotten away, wounded, but not dead. Gauidum had found out, and now he would have to be held by force until he was transformed.
It was now quite fortunate that he planned on utterly destroying all memories Gaudium had of his life before his change. Unlike the others, this would be the first of his breeds that would be a clean, powerful slate to start with. Everything else in living beings could be magically imbued, except a skill as hard to understand such as creativity.
That was what drew Gaudium as a target.
Glaring at the bridge surface still, Siral turned to walk towards the main Citadel entry tunnel, hearing the sounds of thundering shaking from the distance mountains higher up and far away. His local army of titans were doing their part to try and take out the Wizard, who seemed tired at least.
A sticky wet liquid sqwelched on Siral’s hoof, and with a glance down, he saw a crimson liquid staining in a few drops, and even a few large puddles. Starswirl had a large wound thanks to Teal Quirt, bleeding noticeably.
Staring at the blood of his former friend, Siral’s scowl vanished. Perhaps Starswirl could prove useful to his cause after all.
Taking out a small vial and cork, Siral’s black and grey magic, the white and yellow amulets fading from no need for them now, scooped up as much of the blood before it dried and stained the stone.
A volume of blood the same size as the vial’s cork now rested, as Siral had thoughts turn to Gaudium’s enhancement.
A better revenge would be in Starswirl contributing to the last of his seven.
Without a look back, pocketing the vial of blood, Siral ignored the torn and burnt state of his grey cloak as he slowly walked along the bridge, the guards repairing the damage from their battle as he exited.

Late Evening/Nightfall
5 miles from Citadel, north midland mountain valleys

Having taken a tunnel route out, Starswirl’s teleportations dropped him on a mountain slope not far from the inconspicuous mine shaft that served as a secret labyrinth plagued entrance to the Citadel. One wrong path taken alongs its length led to a dead end, and a hidden trap or horror.
Wheezing, the Wizard saw his badly bleeding leg trailing some blood droplets on the grass and muddy slopes near where he landed.
The moon was half full overhead, blemished by a half overcast of night clouds, but the pitch black of the forest was daunting to the Wizard.
Collapsing on the slope, his soul sank as his mind turned to panic. His mind run, as he thought hard about those he knew were in graver danger than he had anticipated.
Alicorns flashed through his mind, dead, and alive, regardless of their side in the Civil War.
But as his mind wandered to the 2 princesses, the earth began to tremble.
His horn lighting up the area in a dim, but broad light, Starswirl saw something horrifying to his left. A boulder began to shift, as a much, much larger shape behind it rear impossibly high up, the very mountain face looming behind it seemed to engulf the night sky.
A low humming noise filled the air, as a groaning that sounded too uneven for it to be simply a rockslide reverberated through the air and ground and back again, through Starswirl’s very bones itself.
Something very old, and powerful. Tainted with Siral’s magic enough to move more than it otherwise could, as a set of very small grey dots that marked the ‘eyes’ reared higher and higher into the night sky, becoming like stars by how far and small they seemed.
In the dim blue light, the mountain being loomed before the Wizard, a single shuffling step of its large foreleg shaking the ground, moss and shrubs covering its entirety as loose dirt and rocks tumbled off its massive body, 200 metres tall and even longer head to tail, shaped like a tortoise made out of a mountain.
His blue magic dimmed as the massive being cast its shadow over Starswirl, rearing its head down as a maw impossibly wide began to open, the air roaring as its head moved to attack. What seemed slow from a distance belied just how fast something of its size moved.
In a blue flash, Starswirl vanished further up the mountain slopes, away from this gargantuan creature. Utterly exhausted at this point, his leg beginning to feel numb, he fired a desperate blast at the creature, a blue lightning bolt in the dark mountain night crashing against its massive stone fore shoulder, a few bits of rock and debris flying from the powerful blast.
Yet an unearthly roar echoed as it charged, its waddles faster than a charging Rhino up the mountain towards Starswirl.
Off to the side of his vision, Starswirl saw another mountain ridge move, as a longer shape began to detach, a very barely visible behemoth hauling itself from its slumber on a slimmer body with 6 legs, and 2 similar pinpoint grey eyes aimed at him.
A fear like no other wrenched through Stasrwirl, and it poured itslf into his spells as he began a desperate flee through the mountains, slow in his teleporting by his blood loss, wound, exhaustion from his previous fight, and helplessness even before these titans, Siral’s stone giant army, turned on him as he tried to escape.
As he fled, a pang of fear, horror, and plea for a miracle blazed he unleashed another spell at the pursuing stone giant, the second one coming up even faster from a mile behind them.

Nokotaford, Royal Palace
Princesses’s quarters

Starswirl’s terrified expression, and a dark mountainside with beings of incomprehensible size and power chasing him, flashed in Celestia’s mind as if she were feeling it.
Fear for them, just as much for himself. Too vivd to be a dream.
Darting awake with a terrified scream, Celestia saw her doors burst open 2 seconds later, as Luna used the doorway connecting their chambers without going through the outside guards. Her face beheld similar distraught worry:
“Sister, Starswirl! You had the vision too!?”
“Yes, what a drea-vision? It is real?”
“I know dreams better than you sister, Starswirl is in grave peril!”
Celestia sprang from her bed, remarking fretfully: “He set off on his own, he rejected our help when I said he shouldn’t.”
“We never listened to him all the time before.” Luna replied briskly, a small joke as Celestia readied a teleporting spell, to save their teacher and friend, even if he wasn’t much of one from his end.

Outside, the guards rushed in with a frenzy as they saw Celestia and Luna vanish in a mixed yellow/blue flash.
Queen Aurora was not going to be happy with them vanishing without announcement in the night.

Author's Notes:

Starswirl made the mistake of engaging Siral on his home turf, with no prior knowledge or details of what to find, or what Siral had dabbled in.
And Siral makes his position very clear, even as Gaudium had been listening in as always from above. He was less noticeable as a presence than the 6 others, though the distraction helped him eavesdrop unseen.
Gaudium’s pleasant times are over, for good in fact. And from here on in things are no longer scheming and waiting with Siral and the others. But this won’t be the last time Siral’s carefully sculpted web of deceit unwravels, and far from the most easily resolved.
And Stasrwirl finds out firsthand how powerful Siral’s Citadel sentinels are. But amidst his panic, he subconsciously begs for help from 2 Alicorns he now knows are in more grave danger than previously thought.