PROMPT: https://i.4cdn.org/mlp/1645134419438.jpg

>You spare another glance at your new companion.
>Enemy, you had first thought.
>When the skeletal unicorn rose from the dust itself to challenge you, you thought you had gotten something terribly wrong.
>You thought it a fatal mistake.
>Not that fatal mistakes necessarily mean the end, around here.
>But it would be quite some time before somepony got a skull for a cutie mark like you did.
>Instead that unicorn’s skull, twin blue flames in eyesockets, had bowed for you.
>Now it walked beside you, the quiet clack of every step as soft as your own breathing.
>It could not lead you, it said.
>Your blood always shown the way.
>The two of you walk between rows and stacks of niches in walls.
>Each sealed by a door, and each door engraved with a name.
>The ceiling was almost beyond sight, in the gloom, and from its edges to the floor itself the walls were honeycombed with these niches.
>But ahead of you was a very different feature.
>An altar, and a great statue behind it of some unknown but fearsome bipedal armored creature, both made of marble.
>A heroic figure from a bygone age.
>You were here to pay your respects to it.
>And, if necessary, more.
>You stop before the altar.
>Your companion departs your side, taking up position to the statue’s left.
>It gazes at you with an obviously unreadable expression.
>Your horn tingles just standing here.
>You can barely keep your knees from shaking, as if you were back at your Young Unicorn’s Magic Exam.
>How did the incantation go, again?
>You can’t even see the niche you’re supposed to direct your magic at.
>Where was The Founder interred, if not here?
>Don’t worry about it.
>At the very least, this could just be the world’s most intense practice session.
“Oh great sire of this nation! He who bridged life and death, and brought together both sides in spiritual harmony! Speaker for they with no tongues, seer of those with no sight, listener to them with no ears with which they may hear themselves! Lord and guardian of both sides of the Gate! Psychopomp of the stars! Hear the cry of one living soul, willing to welcome the taste of death, by way of this sacred implement!”
>Nothing stirred.
>You were afraid of this.
>The incantation’s final line was not just for dramatic effect.
>A six-pointed circumscribed star is engraved on the altar.
>The point facing you has a notch at the edge of the table, pointing towards the center.
>A slice cuts across the altar’s entire width. Intersecting said notch halfway between the altar’s front edge and where the notch meets the star’s point.
>Inside that point is a depression.
>The perfect fit and contour of a hoof.
>You gingerly lift your left foreleg, and look at the underside of your own hoof.
>Then, delicately, you levitate an engraved and embellished knife from your saddlebags.
>You had spent a week restoring the blade from its terribly rusted state, carefully, one spot at a time.
>Now, it seems, you will have to mar it with a substance a slightly different shade of red.
>You put the point to your frog.
>You close your eyes.
>And push the knife in just enough.
>The pain is immense.
>Far more than would be expected of such a wound.
>But you can’t cry out.
>That would ruin the ritual.
>And likely incur the ire of your new friend.
>When you open your eyes, the blood pooling in your hoof makes you a little queasy.
>You slam it down on the hoofprint on the altar as quick as you can.
>The blood flows – via a force you can’t even detect – through the six-pointed star and the circle that circumscribes it.
>And then it flows… through the stone itself.
>Dozens of runes you had not been able to see shine through the surface of the marble, as if just underneath it.
>It’s a script you can’t read.
>But one you do recognize.
>From covers of the oldest books in the darkest wing of the palace library.
>The altar is aflame with light the color of your own blood.
>The power is palpable.
>It’s giving you a headache.
>And yet…
“Why is nothing happening?”
>You look to the unicorn skeleton, still impassively standing guard.
>It cocks its head, and a wispy voice drifts through your mind.
>”Do you really not know?”
>Eyes wide, you shake your head in short, rapid twitches.
>It takes two steps forward.
>Its horn glows with a sickly unlight, a black void that swallows it.
>Then a massive blade appears in midair.
>One end is capped by a short blunt rod, which is swiftly consumed by that same unlight.
>A curious weapon whose design you had never seen before, like a knife far too big to reasonably use.
>”You are Unicorn.”
>The ethereal voice in your head gains a hard edge.
>”Death for you is not just of the body. That death, too, must be tasted.”
>Your blood turns to ice in your veins as it continues to advance on you, strange blade raised.
>”Kneel.”
>You look down at the altar.
>The notch you noticed before, you now realize, is precisely the size of a unicorn’s horn.
>Unable to control your shaking knees now, dropping to a kneel is not the most graceful maneuver.
>You align your horn in the notch.
>Out of the corner of the eye, you can see the blade rise.
>Then fall.
>This pain is not one you can contain.
>Despite yourself, you scream.
>Magic flows uncontrolled from your now-halved horn, filling the altar in front of you with power of a more familiar personal color.
>Twice you fail to stand, but barely make it on the third time, and somehow manage to stay that way.
>At the edges of your vision, you can see sparks falling around your head from above.
>No doubt as to their source.
>But no longer is just the altar glowing.
>The statue’s eyes glow too.
>And not with the red of your blood, but with your own magic’s glow.
>And you can FEEL its gaze directed at you.
>”Hrrrgh. I fucking told you guys to not wake me up.”
>You blink.
>What?
>”Do you have any idea how sweet the afterlife is?” The hard yet definitely masculine voice rings out. “Who thinks she’s so goddamned important?”
>Somehow, you find your voice.
“I- I called you, tenth-great-g-grandsire.”
>“Grandsire- oh hey, what’s up Rattles. You know this chick?”
>The animate skeleton turns to the statue and bows, deeper than it had to you. “Yes, sire. I rose to defend your tomb, as I have many times before. But I could not harm her. My oath of fealty bound me to her at once, I could no more refuse her orders than yours. She is indeed of your blood.”
>“Yeah, no shit. Hey filly, good job waking me up all by yourself. But why bother?”
>The pain has retreated enough that you can actually answer his question.
“Forgive me for defiling your spirit with my curse, honored ancestor. I only seek-”
>”Let me stop you right there. What the fuck do you mean ‘curse’? This is our thing. Okay, most of my kids couldn’t do it, but my youngest could.”
>The Founder’s youngest?
>You fight through the haze of pain to think.
“You mean Nemo?”
>”Excuse you, you mean Princess Nemo. She was kickass, that’s why I made her heir to the throne. All the others were gigantic fucking colts, for real. How do you not know?”
>The tone of his voice drives you back, and you stumble when you put weight on your jabbed hoof.
>”Sire,” Rattles begins hesitantly, “You are scaring her. If I may – it seems things did not go to plan. Your elder children seized power. Allied with the Elements, they forsook the old ways. Disinherited Nemo, turned her to stone. This child is of Incognito’s line. History has been rewritten. Spirit Harmony is outlawed.
>”Stars fucking damn it, they fucked it all. I knew I should have spanked that little shit harder. Okay, please reduce my volcanic fucking rage by a single iota by telling me you at least aren’t drinking the kool-aid.”
>What’s kool-aid?
“Um, n-no, Grandsire. I was never welcome in the Halls of Harmony. I am a prisoner in the palace, a mark of shame upon our family. Because of my-”
>Not a curse.
“-my gift.”
>“Damn straight it’s a gift. We take gigantic dumps on curses and evil and whatever, we got that spirit harmony. Have they seriously flushed all our lore down the shitter?”
“I found the old texts, in a forgotten wing of the library. We were so much more in your time. The traitors invited in the Elements, helped them destroy our culture. They put loyalists to stone! All because they couldn’t admit their weakness, that they could only foster Harmony on one side of the Gate. Their foals accepted the lies, became decadent and impure.”
>You shake your head, tears falling to the stone tilework on which you stand.
“Even my parents are unworthy. They talk of friendship and tranquility, but know nothing of either. They bow to outsiders and care nothing for our own kind. They love themselves…
>A sob interrupts your frustrated tirade.
“…more than their own filly! They still honor you as the founder, but say you changed your ways before you died. So much has been done in your name. I could not stand it a moment longer. Not when I could escape, find you, and speak to you. I would rather lie dead with my ancestors than live in their principality of lies.
>You feel the statue’s gaze on you a long time.
>And as it stares, your pain slowly ebbs.
>“Fucking retards. Okay, what’s your name again?”
>You look away from the statue’s glowing eyes, to the stone floor.
“I… I am ashamed to say it. I am Twilight. They named me after her. After an Element.”
>“Oh. I trolled her ass like a million times back when I had flesh. Well, don’t worry, that’s a pretty fitting name for those like us, so we’ll just rehabilitate it by making you Princess yourself. Show her up.
>Impossible.
“Princess? That will never be.”
>“Oh, you think so? Believe it, fatherbucker. Where are all my little ponies buried?”
>Rattles responds again. “Not far from here. They all desired to rest beside their prince.”
>“Nice. Rez ‘em all, filly. The Grandsire’s back, and he’s absolutely livid.”
>Resurrect them?
>How, now?
>Sparks falling through the edges of your sight.
“I cannot, Grandsire. My… My magic…”
>”Complete the ritual.”
“How?!”
>”Do it!”
>Blinking back more tears, you look at the altar.
>Half of your horn left behind in the now-bloody notch, still touching the closest point of the star.
“A-and with this sacrifice, I give of myself to one who gave of h-h-himself to so many others, so he may yet give again!”
>Your amputated horn explodes with light, casting the gloomy crypt into a brilliance rivaling pure daylight.
>The statue glows along seams you had not noticed, then…
>Starts drifting apart.
>Within is an alien skeleton, shaped as the upright biped the statue depicted, clad in the same armor.
>Green fire wreaths its skull as it steps down from the statue’s pedestal.
>It looks to the unicorn skeleton beside it, now practically lying on the floor in abasement.
>”Rattles.”
>”Yes, Sire?”
>”My shield.”
>”Of course, Sire.”
>The incarnated remains of Lord Anonymous grabs the sword Rattles had mutilated your horn with in one hand, while a shield appears for his other arm.
>The shield’s face is polished to a mirror sheen, marred only by an intricate engraving of the most complex magical glyph you have ever seen.
>He touches the blade to the still-glowing altar.
>The altar’s light infuses it, coursing along its length.
>Then he walks over to you.
>Even now numbed, his presence makes you want to fall to your knees once again.
>He gazes down at you and raises his sword- 
>-Drawing a flinch from you that he simply snorts at-
>-and brings the flat against both your shoulders, one then then other.
>Your spine tingles, then-
>A greater pain than even that which brought Anonymous back erupts from your shoulders.
>You can feel your back tear open, at either side of your spine.
>The agony throws you to the floor, crouched down, sides heaving with the most excruciating sensation you have ever experienced.
>And then as quickly as it came, it stops.
>"Rise."
>You get back to your shaking hooves once again, then look up at Anonymous.
>He shifts his shield to face you, angled so you can see your reflection.
>Sprouting from either side of your back are new limbs.
>Skeletal limbs.
>The bones of pegasi wings jut from between your shoulderblades.
>Phantasmal feathers anchor to them, spread in a wondrous display of ethereal light, the same color of your magic’s own glow.
>And then, when he angles his shield a little higher…
>The top of your horn too is replaced by its own ghost.
>Yes, that’s what this is.
>You are your flesh, and now at the same time a spectre.
>”There. Now, Twilight, you too stand on both sides of the Gate. You have greater magic than you’ve ever had before. Like I said; rez ‘em all. We have a principality to reclaim.”
>He turns to lead the way out, but stops himself, turning that green-flaming alien skull back towards you.
>“Oh, and point out any colts you like while we’re conquering. We’ll weed out the prissy fucks later.”
>At your shocked expression, he laughs.
>”Hey, the bloodline’s not gonna carry itself!”
>With that he started walking away, his heavy armor shaking the dust off stone with every long stride.
>You hurry behind him, flexing your new wings.
>You’ll show them true Harmony.
>You, and Lord Anonymous the Returned.