My Little Pony: Children of the Night
Book One
By Princess Firefly Highmist

My Little Pony is trademark of Hasbro. Friendship is Magic was created by Lauren Faust. This is a non-profit fanfiction.

Prologue

The skies rumbled overheard and the ground shook underhoof. Lightning streaked across the skies as a dark figure flew overhead. Only his echoing, sinister laughter could be heard over the booming thunder. Ponies trembled on the ground below, lost for thought or action. Even the great power of the Rainbow of Light and the Flutter Ponies had failed against his terrible wrath. Their only hope had not come.
A lone human girl stood defiant, glaring into the darkened hevens. Determination still burned bright in her eyes. Still she did not know what action to take.  The poem the venerable, befuddled old sage of the Mushromp had mumbled to her echoed in her mind:
When things are darkest and grim
And almost certain victory belongs to him
In true friendship you will find
Will open wide the doors of time.
But victory will come at a cost
For to win a friend must be lost.
Ponies shrieked and trembled in the background in terror and lament. Why? Why have the Princess Ponies not come? Were they preoccupied? What had come of The Crystal Kingdom? Was it lay waste as Dream Valley was about to become? Or was it that the Princess Ponies had abandoned them completely?
Lightning flashed overhead illuminating the creature which was the root of the problem, half-pony and half- rooster, with yellow feathers. The front half was of a pony, the rear half a rooster's wings, tail and legs, a hippalectryon. 
The girl repeated the poem to herself again. What possibly could the Moochick have been talking about? A cruel grin spread across the hippalectryon’s face as he began to mutter an incantation. The ground trembled again and split beneath the human girl’s feet causing her to fall into the chasm. 
The human girl could feel the heat of the lava as she plummeted to certain doom. She let out a terrified scream. Suddenly a pink and blue blur raced to catch her moments before the girl met her fiery doom. A pink pegasus mare with cobalt blue mane and tail winged into the air with the human girl upon her back. Upon her flank was a mark of two cobalt lightning bolts. The girl hugged around the pegasus’s neck.
“Thank you Firefly! I thought that I was a gonner”, the girl said gratefully.
The pegasus, Firefly smiled as she settled back to the ground and said, “Hey, don’t sweat it Megan! You think that I’d let one of my best pals drop to her doom? Horsefeathers!”
The human girl, Megan hugs around Firefly’s neck once more and says, “I don’t know what I’d do without you! But now we have bigger problems to worry about, him!”
Megan points up to the hippalectryon who’s eyes were now glowing with the power he was amassing. The landscape below was further being ripped asunder into complete ruin. A determined look crossed Firefly’s face as she winged quickly up into the sky once more.
Megan made a grab for Firefly to stop her, but it was too late. The only thing she could do now was yell after her friend, “Firefly! No! Come back! What are you doing! You can’t stop him!”
“Watch me”, Firefly yelled back as she doubled her speed.
Firefly was the greatest flier in all of Dream Valley. Her sense of daring, determination and stubbornness made her careless, yet near in-conquerable. She rose high above the hippalectryon and turned into a skydive spiraling down in her signature move, The Double Inside-Out Loop.
The hippalectryon did not notice the pink and blue streak barreling toward him as he reveled in the power and the destruction he wrought. Suddenly Firefly’s hooves latched onto the golden medallion hanging from the hippalectryon’s neck sending them both into a spiral. His razor sharp back talons clawed and bucked against the filly causing her tremendous pain, yet she was determined. She would not release the medallion, the source of the hippalectryon’s power.
Megan’s eyes widened in horror along with the rest of the ponies’ as they seen what Firefly was attempting. Megan cried out, “Firefly, NO! Don’t touch the medallion! He’ll take control of you too!”
 A grin spread over the hippalectryon’s face as his intense eyes fixed upon Firefly’s. Her expression melted into a daze as his eyes met hers. She could feel her head swim as his voice whispered and echoed into her mind. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and latched tighter onto the medallion as the two tangled and engaged in aerial combat.
As Megan and the other ponies looked on at the confrontation and ruination of their home all hope seemed lost. Then suddenly without warning the clouds parted in the distance and the rumble of hooves drowns out the thunder. What should appear but the answer to the ponies’ prayers, the Princess Ponies!
Megan rushed to the ivory unicorn with metallic, sea-green mane and tail and hugged her tightly around the neck and said, “Princess Sparkle, you came!”
The unicorn, Princess Sparkle smiled and replied, “Of course we came! We would not leave our friends to their doom. Now, what is transpiring here?”
Pose, a yellow earthpony mare with pink mane and tail speaks up, “Firefly has engaged Grogmere and is trying to remove the medallion from his neck!”
Princess Sparkle looks grim as she turns to look at her sister Princess Ponies. They share the same grim look of dismay as Princess Sparkle replies, “That’s very bad. Right now the amulet is most likely corrupting her as we speak. Sadly...” She pauses to take in a deep breath before continuing, “She is going to have to be exiled as well.”
Megan looked shocked. Tears began to stream down her face as she shook her head and pleaded, “No! you can’t! This is Firefly we’re talking about!”
Princess Sparkle nods solemnly and replies, “It cannot be helped Megan. Even as we speak the Firefly we know is slipping away. Every moment we wait brings Dream Valley closer to its complete annihilation.”
Meanwhile in the clouds Firefly keeps a tight hold upon the hippalectryon’s medallion of power as he tries to wrench her free with vicious gouges and rakes of his sharp hind talons. Firefly grits her teeth to hold onto the cursed medallion and her own mind as Grogmere’s whispers and laughter echo louder and louder inside her head. She begins flailing and kicking back with all her might to detach the amulet from his neck.
Suddenly a clasp of lightning aluminates the sky just as the chain around Grogmere’s neck snaps sending Firefly hurtling downward with her forelegs wrapped tightly around it. Grogmere Shrieks with avian rage, much like a hawk as he arches his back in a pained posture. Slowly as his form begins to disintegrate beams of light pierce through his skin shining outward from within.
Back on the ground Megan clutched a heart locket in her palm with her head hung crying. Her heart broke as the realization of the Moochick’s poem sank in, “but victory will come at a cost, for to win a friend must be lost.” She loved Firefly so dearly. Firefly was the first pony that she had met. It was Firefly who first brought her to this magical land. Here now she was about to exile her to suffer the medallion’s curse someplace else far away.
Princess Sparkle nuzzled Megan softly and whispered, “I’m sorry Megan. I’m so sorry, but it has to be done. You know what you have to do.”
Megan nodded slowly and stepped back into the crowd of crying ponies behind her, some of which nuzzled her supportively. Megan closed her eyes and extended out her arms and opened the heart locket. As soon as the locket opened a rainbow shined out, a ribbon of color that danced upon the wind with a life force of its own.
Princess Sparkle stepped back into the company of the other Princess Ponies and raised her head high. Her horn began to glow as she chanted, “Come Rainbow, grant us your power! Bestow upon us your light and grace that we may vanquish evil, serve good and open wide the gates of time!”
Instantly the Rainbow of light encircled the Princess Ponies, lifting them from the ground as they were awash in a near-blinding light. Each raised their heads high, crowns upon their regal brows, the scepters in hoof and their jeweled cutie marks glimmering brightly.
Tears flowed from Firefly’s eyes as she fell. The drop seemed to take forever. She could almost hear singing, soft, slow and melodic as her life flashed before her eyes. Light slowly engulfed the hippalectryon, Grogmere eventually causing him to explode in shimmering dust which rained down from the clearing skies.
The rainbow of light spun faster and faster around the glowing Princess Ponies as their bodies slowly started to transform. Horns slowly began to sprout from the brows of those that previously had none. Feathery wings budded from their sides as they grew in height making them all into regal-looking alicorns.
The Princess Ponies opened their eyes, which were a blinding radiance. The light was so bright that it caused the other ponies and Megan to have to cover their faces and look away. They looked upward toward the plummeting Firefly. In unison they emitted beams of light from their eyes that washed firefly in light. The skies opened up around the dazed pegasus in a swirling vortex of darkness and light. Then she was gone. The heavens close the void swallowing Firefly completely.


The sun shined brightly in the beautiful, clear, blue sky. A gentle breeze blew across the soft, green grass of the valley. Paradise Estate was intact for the most part, needing only minor repairs. Though the landscape was altered a bit Dream Valley had survived.
Megan and the other ponies raised their heads and gazed upon the newly transformed Princess Ponies, now alicorns. The Rainbow of Light sparkled and danced around them awaiting to return to its home within the heart-shaped locket.  Megan looked in awe at the transformation, as did the rest of the Little Ponies. Megan opened the locket allowing the rainbow to shrink and flow back inside which she closed afterward. 
“Wha... what happened? Where’s Firefly?”, Megan asked in a panic. 
Her question was soon echoed by another pony, Gusty who was a white unicorn with sea-green mane and tail with red streaks. Her cutie mark was that of leaves blown by wind. “Yeah, where’s Firefly!”
Princess Sparkle and the other princess Ponies looked back and forth at each other in dismay and slowly hung their heads. Princess Sparkle replied, “She’s gone.”
There was a gasp through the crowd of ponies. Megan demanded, “Gone? Gone where!”
Princess Sparkle gazed upon Megan with a sympathetic look, “She is lost to time itself, gone forever.”
Megan and the ponies sighed. Some began to cry. Megain softly whispered Firefly’s name.
Princess Sparkle continued, “Firefly was a great hero. She sacrificed herself so that the rest of you and Dream Valley could go on. We should all remember and honor her name, for thanks in part to her Dream Valley is saved.”
Megan looked up with a glimmer of hope in her gaze and asked, “She is lost in time. What happens if she returns someday?”
Princess Sparkle slowly shook her head and replied, “We could not destroy the power within Grogmere’s amulet. We could only send it away. The day that Firefly returns with the amulet will be a dark day for all…”

End Prologue
