Attack of the Equine Empire

The cavern was nearly pitch black, even with the torches on the walls. Many of them were burnt out due to neglect. Flick said he had a device that could light fires without magic, but it was in his library with his other belongings, and he didn't have time to grab it. Also, it may have exploded with many other possessions of his, according to Flick. Twilight's eyes had adjusted by the time they reached the grotto. "Finally," Rainbow said, stretching. "An open space." She flapped her wings and jumped in the air...only to fall face down on the ground.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked.

"I don't know," she said, sitting up and rubbing her head. She tried to take off again, and another time after that, all with the same results.

"Fascinating," Flick said. He walked over to where she laid. He took her wings in his hooves and closely examined each one. He moved his hooves up and down the lengths of each wing, put pressure on some of the joints, and even plucked one of Dash's feathers, resulting in a short cry of pain and a very annoyed look. "Do you feel strange in anyway? Any sort of cramping feeling in your wings?"

"My wings feel a little weird, like there's some sort of block between them and the rest of my body. I noticed it a few minutes ago, but I just ignored it." She went to her hooves. The falls had scraped the knees of her back legs. A tiny stream of blood moved down one of them, but she didn't even seem to notice..

"You don't seem to have anything physically wrong with you," Flick said, stepping back from Rainbow. "That could mean..." He pondered for a moment while the girls waited for a response. When none came, Twilight was the one to break the temporary silence.

"Could mean what?" she asked.

"Great Gods above," he proclaimed. "The bubble shield thing. It's somehow affected Rainbow's ability to fly along with our ability to use magic."

"I'm not so sure about that one, Flick," Twilight said.

"Okay, we'll just consider it a theory for now. But think of the implications! If the ponies who attacked the Palace are also responsible for this, then their magical abilities are unmatched by any beings besides alicorns such as yourself."

"Or Rainbow Dash could just have cramps."

"Or they could be cramps. That possibility is also just as likely, I suppose." He calmed down, but the idea obviously hadn't left him. Twilight could easily see the slight excitement that lingered on his face.

"Speaking of the attackers," she added, "earlier you mentioned that they were after something else entirely."

"Yes, I did. This assault was no-doubt a result of them wanting to quickly and easily take over the Capital. That much is clear. The other part..." He bit his lip and looked to the ground, probably thinking to himself about what to say. Twilight tapped her hoof, hoping to finally get a straight answer.

"Well?" she said after a few seconds when no answer came. Flick looked back up as if he had forgotten they were there. "Oh," he said, "I was just trying to remember if I heard what I heard right. The guards I overheard said Alicorn's Bane, I'm fairly certain, but that can't be. It's merely a myth. An old legend. It's about as real as the Book of the Dead, or the Alicorn Amulet, or the..."

"The Alicorn Amulet is real," Twilight interjected.

Flick seemed genuinely surprised to hear that. "What? No it isn't. It's just an old mare's tale."

"No. A friend of mine found it and used it. Well, when I say friend I mean arch-nemesis, but we're friends now...sort of."

"Oh my. This...this changes things..." He went back to thinking. Can't he ever just think out loud every once and awhile?

"It could still not be real," Dash said, "this Alicorn's Bane you're talking about."

"It's a story built off of actual history. There's no official mention of it outside Mustangian oral tradition. I read about it in an old songs-and-stories book." He paced around a bit while thinking. They had all stopped walking by the start of the conversation, and by the end the girls listened intently, ready to hear what he had to say.

"Well," Rainbow said, "what is it anyway?" Flick walked over to a rock and sat down on it. Twilight and Rainbow looked at each other, then sat down on their haunches in front of him.

"Long ago, after the fall of Discord, when the alicorns came to this continent and were plentiful, both birthed natural kind and ascended kind, and before the War of Day and Night, a kingdom was here. Not Mustangia, but a different one. One ruled by a pony queen named Steelshanks. Steelshanks was an earth pony, which was uncommon for a ruler at a time when there were so many alicorns born of royalty. Some alicorns were given kingdoms right out of the womb, where as Steelshanks had to claw her way up from the lowest possible place to get hers." Celestia and Luna were born alicorns, and they were there that long ago, Twilight thought.

"She grew jealous of their privilage," Flick continued, "of their arrogance, and of the magic they could perform so easily, while an earth pony could not. During the War of the Seven Serpents, when her and her nation's armies sailed across the flowing ocean and battled in foreign lands, they found something. A stone, discovered smoking hot in a massive crater, and bigger than a pony's head, that glowed with a strange golden aura about it. Steelshanks liked the color, so she had it fashioned into a helm for her to wear into battle. When she wore it, though, she noticed something. She could use magic. Not only that, but she could outmatch any unicorn in a duel."

"And she was just an earth pony," Twilight said. She leaned forward when listening to Flick, her ears pricked up and her hooves neatly situated on her lap. Rainbow Dash, contrastingly, sat back with her hoves spread apart and her eyes half open. She yawned more and more often as Flick went on with his story.

"Yes," he said. "Imagine what a unicorn could do with the helm, or even an alicorn." Twilight's stomach churned slightly at the thought. "Steelshanks realized this, and she grew accustomed to never removing the helm. It helped her win the war, and utterly decimate the Order of the Seven Serpents. On her return home, she began planning a vast conquest of the continent. She began by gathering a host of forty thousand hardened soldiers from those who returned home with her, and attacking Equestria. It was right next to her kingdom, and it was also where the two most famous alicorns of all time ruled together. Celestia and Luna met her with their own force of twenty five thousand volunteers, along with several hundred alicorns. They fought in the Battle of...Rainbow, wake up!" When he yelled at her, she woke with a sudden jolt.

"Sorry, it's just...this is really boring," she said while she yawned and stretched.

"It's not boring," he said defensively, "it's about history long passed, it's about heroes and villains, it's about epic battles on a grand scale, it's-"

"Not as interesting as you think it is, and it doesn't help that you're giving us all of it at once."

Flick made an angry yet defeated sounding grunt. "Well it could be important, so listen up," he said, giving Rainbow a nasty look. "As I was saying, the two armies met in a clash that would be known as the Battle of the Burning Bridge. A huge river separated the two armies, and they fought on the gigantic bridge running over it. The helm Steelshanks wore is known as Alicorn's Bane because of what happened that day. She killed thirty seven alicorns in an airborne magical brawl before somepony struck her down into the river below. Some say Celestia did it, some say it was Luna, some say it was somepony else entirely. Records from that long ago aren't entirely reliable. All we know as fact is that there was a Queen named Steelshanks, who upon returning from a victory in the War of the Seven Serpents, launched an attack on Equestria that ended when Celestia and Luna killed her and shattered her host at the Battle of the Burning Bridge. There are no definite records of Alicorn's Bane, and if there ever were they have been lost to time. All knowledge of it comes from word of mouth stories, and those are even less reliable."

"I've read about the Battle of the Burning Bridge, and I've certainly never heard of Alicorn's Bane," Twilight said.

"Yes. There was no mention of it outside local legends, I doubted its authenticity, but there is definite proof that Steelshanks killed thirty seven alicorns that day. Thirty seven. Sombra, an incredibly powerful unicorn in his own right, only killed eleven before Celestia and Luna cast him down. Even that is considered a very large number. For centuries Gods Damn it Rainbow!"

She stopped snoring and her eyes shot open. "I'm up. I'm up."

"For centuries alicorns only died occasionally, and almost never by a normal pony's hooves. The only times anymore perished in great number was when fighting Discord, and during the War of Day and Night. You two should know all about that, being Equestrians."

"Wait wait wait, slow down," Rainbow said, getting up. "I thought that the War of Day and Night and the fight with Sombra and Discord was all just between Celestia and Luna."

"Well, that's what the singers and storytellers like to believe. Celestia and Luna, having been the ones to actually defeat Discord, are the most well known alicorns. And I can see the appeal of the millennial drama between two sisters torn apart by power and jealousy. History is often a little less neatly dramatic. After the fall of Discord, there were many alicorns all over the world. The exact number is unknown, as any alicorn could make anypony else an alicorn. Along with that there were the immortal, naturally-born alicorns, yet those were far less common. It is known that during the War of Day and Night, all the alicorns (along with hundreds of thousands of ponies) picked a side, and by the time Nightmare Moon was sealed away they were almost entirely wiped out. Since then, Celestia has put a stop to more alicorns being made. There haven't been any new alicorns for a millenia. Until now, that is."

"Flick," Rainbow said, "enough with the history lesson and get to the point. What happened to Alicorn's Bane?"

"The legend says that Celestia took it off of Steelshanks' corpse and hid it in an underground temple somewhere in Mustangia. The temple it talks about is a real place, just North of Bastion. Now-a-days, with so few alicorns left to stop it, anypony who finds it would possess the power to take over the world. Like I said, an old legend. There are many legends about objects that improve a pony in some way. I never thought it could be real. Now... now I'm not so sure."

"What if it is?" Twilight asked, standing up. "They're after it. They wouldn't come all this way if they didn't think it was real."

"I know," he said, as he also stood up.

"Real or not, they have to be stopped. We have to send a letter to Celestia as soon as possible and get help."

"Agreed. She needs to know what's happened here. Although, ponies are bound to talk about a bubble covering the Palace. Won't be long before word spreads."

"We haven't even seen a bubble yet," Rainbow said as she stood up with the others.

"Are you doubting my bubble theory?"

"No, I'm just saying that we should keep our options open." Flick frowned at that.

"Well, we'll prove it in a moment," he said. He pointed at the path ahead of them. "If we continue up this path we'll reach an opening into the city. Once we get out, you'll be able to see the huge bubble around the Palace." He pointed and glared at them while he said that. He walked forward and set out farther into the cave. Twilight and Rainbow followed him down into the dark.

No torchlight could reach them after that. Twilight couldn't see anything more than a few feet in front of her, so she kept close behind Flick, and Rainbow kept close behind Twilight. "Are you sure you know where you're going, Flick?" she asked.

"Yes. I've explored these caverns below the main tunnel system many a time. Mostly out of curiosity. Some of the things I've found down here are very interesting..." He trailed off.

"Hey, Flick?" Rainbow asked from the back.

"What?" he called back to her, not stopping to turn around.

"When we get out of here and send a message to Celestia, we're going to go after the helmet, right? So that those Equine Empire guys can't get it."

"One, Alicorn's Bane is a helm, not a helmet. Two, after we send a message to Celestia we wait in the city until she sends help. That is how we stop them from getting Alicorn's Bane, if it's even real."

"What?! We can't just sit around and do nothing. If we can't help our friends, then the least we can do is stop the Equine Empire ponies. Stop what they're trying to do."

"What they're trying to do is take over Mustangia. Why they're looking for a fictional relic is beyond my understanding. Now, Twilight's comments may have piqued my interest earlier, but I logically concluded that an item such as Alicorn's Bane can not possibly be real. Those idiots upstairs just don't realize it."

A sudden change of heart? Twilight wondered. She turned her head to see Dash. The stark lack of understanding was clear as day on her face. "Twilight said it herself, why would they be after it if they weren't sure it was real? The conversation you overheard saved us from walking into a trap."

"But it'll also send us across the country on a wild goose chase that could turn up nothing."

"It's possible, right? That's why you told the story, because it could be real."

"Yes. It's possible. I wouldn't of brought it up if it wasn't. I'm just saying it isn't smart to go after it."

"It's better than doing nothing!" She yelled at him. Twilight and Flick stopped, though Flick kept his eyes forward. Twilight looked to Rainbow, then to Flick, then back to Rainbow. A moment passed. Twilight felt like it lasted longer than they had even been in the caves. The quiet settled on them for so long. Flick said nothing. Twilight could hear heavy breathing through his nostrils. Then he just kept walking. Twilight looked at Rainbow again and followed him.

Rainbow chewed her lip and joined them, but she was far from defeated. "Fine, I'll go." Flick stopped again, and turned to face her this time. His face was now the one with a complete lack of understanding.

"You'll go?" he asked. The question was half laughter.

"Yeah. Earlier, you said Applejack, Spike, Rarity, all of them, weren't your friends. Well they're my friends. I'm not going to sit on my butt while they're in danger. So I'll go and do something about it. Maybe I can't help them right now, but if going after this Alicorn's Bane thing is the best I can do, then I'll do it."

"Are you kidding me? Rainbow, you wouldn't even know the first place to look for it."

"It doesn't matter. As long as I'm looking for it."

"Do you know how stupid that sounds?"

That's enough, Twilight thought. "I'll go with you," she finally said to Rainbow Dash. Flick stood there, his mouth agape with surprise.

"You're joking," he said. "That's the only logical explanation. You're a Princess. I don't really think you should be traveling the countryside."

"I can't let Rainbow go out on her own. She's right, too. If I can't help my friends, I want to try to do anything I can. You can stay here if you want. We're going to get this thing before the Equine Empire can get it. Though," she said, her voice softening, "we don't even know where to start. Will you at least come with us?"

Flick looked like he was about to explode. He opened his mouth to begin yelling at them, but he quickly sighed and surrendered. It was a deep, heavy sigh. He looked at each of them for a few moments before he started speaking. "Princess, I've been a little inconsistent. I say that the world's in danger, then tell you it's nothing. I explain the history behind some magical artifact, then tell you it's just a legend. It's because I want it to be a legend. I read about things like that, and I shudder to think of them being real. If this thing is real, then we're in bigger danger than I could have ever imagined. If those ponies get their hooves on it, the world is in very real trouble. I didn't want to believe that, because then it falls to us to stop them. I know about you and your friends, and what you have done for Equestria. There would be no stopping you from going after this thing. I just didn't want to be left behind. I'm not the kind of pony who goes gallivanting off on adventures anymore. I'm too old. I left those days behind me a long time ago.

"Just this morning, I nearly had a heart attack when I overheard those two ponies plotting. I realized that I fell out of it over the past few years. I had become cowardly, and couldn't bear to let you go to your possible death. So I tried to deny it, for my own selfish reasons. I didn't want to feel like I failed somepony else. But seeing you, you and your friend's determination to save the ones you love..." He knelt down before Twilight and Rainbow. "I would be honored to temporarily forsake my vows towards Princess Cornaria, and swear the oath of my order to serve you, Princess. To follow you where ever you need me to follow, to guide and advise you in anyway I can, for as long as I live. That is... if you'll have me."

"A simple okay would have been fine," Twilight said as she smiled.

"If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit dramatic." He stood up and smiled to Twilight and Rainbow.

"I accept your service, and expect you to do your duty to me to the best of your ability. Now, how much longer until we get out of here?"

"Not long. There's an exit into the city just up ahead. Follow me." He lead them farther and farther down the path. Twilight wanted to say how much she appreciated that Flick was there for them, but when she was about to say it she noticed a light in the distance.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"Yes," Flick responded. "That's the sun, ladies."

"I've missed it so much," Rainbow Dash said.

"We've only been here for at most a few hours."

"Still..."

"There's going to be a metal grate covering the exit, but we'll be out of the bubble so we can use magic to get past it pretty quickly."

Twilight let out a breath of relief. Hours in the near pitch black gave her a craving for sunlight, fresh air, and her magic. She wasn't going to let it get her down, yet she always felt strangely naked without her powers. Flick reached the grate first and stared blankly out of it. "What?" Twilight asked, "What is it?"

"...crap."