And the Walls Kept Tumbling Down

Deep under the ground, rising magma, lighter than the rock that contained it, began to stir again, as it had so many millions of years ago. 'Twas a miracle that the volcano had slept for so long; long enough for a civilization to build itself upon its results. But the alarm had rung long ago, and the volcano seemed to realize that it was really, really, really late for work.

Erika Darknight lounged across a chaise in Celestia's Royal Guards' Headquarters. Laying in front of her was a book, about three inches thick, with dog-eared pages and questionable stains marring the perfection of the novel. It had been ages since the guardspony had been given a chance to idle, and even at that, she wasn't merely idling. This book, after all, was the second in the Erika Stormborn series, and, despite her rough-and-tough reputation, would never give up the chance to read a new book about her absolute favorite character (and her namesake), especially since the first one had come out when she was a foal.

Which is why an angry scowl crossed her face when the ground began to shake, flipping the pages until the book fell clean to the floor in a mess of flying pages. If Golden Scythe was experimenting again, she was going to rip his head off and toss it into Celestia's sun.

Then another tremor shook the ground, and she let out a cry of surprise as it sent her sprawling. The screams of other guards rand throughout the castle as things went crashing to the ground, and Erika realized that it wasn't an experiment. It was something much more sinister, something ancient and completely natural.

Which was why it frightened her so much.

Pillow Dew was awoken from her gentle slumber as the ground shook. Her wide yellow eyes grew to near disks in terror as she looked about for a source of the tremors. Going against the flow of the ponies she quickly glided upwards into the air, flying towards the Guard's Headquarters, if anywhere, she'd rather be among one of them if disaster occurred, than even asleep on a cloud far away.

A guttural growl rumbled in Erika's throat as she stumbled to her hooves, keeping a tight grip on her blades. Of all ways to die, if she got stabbed to death by her own weapons... that would be a fate more horrible than ending up in Tartarus.

She side-stepped a crack that had formed under her hooves, breaking the pristine marble into pieces. Anger quickly turned to heavily concealed panic as the ground started to crumble under her shoes, and she let out a cry as the floor gave out beneath her. Quickly, she closed her eyes and fired off a teleportation spell, which, due to her inexperience with such magic, didn't do what it was supposed to. Instead of landing safely in the town itself, she found herself sprawled over a pegasus filly who had flown in through the window.

"Get out!" she ordered, rolling off of the pegasus and failing miraculously at regaining her footing. "Please, just go! Evacuation, Code Red! Get to the town!"

Pillow stood, wide eyed and panicked. Already she could feel the lull of sleep begin to nag at her, yet the collapsing world kept her mind awake. She looked at Erika. "Awr wo okay?... wuh abou wo? Awr wo comin?"

Shadow Jet who was flying above Canterlot flew down over to Erika and says "Hey. How can I help?"