Attack of the Equine Empire

"Well... at least you were right about there being a bubble," Rainbow Dash told him.

"Yes, but it's a lot bigger than I anticipated," Flick said. Twilight could see it through the metal grate as it stretched across the sky. To her, it looked as if it reached over the entire city and past the walls. The grate was located at the bottom of the hill that the Palace was sitting on, so Twilight couldn't see it when she looked upwards. She thought about her friends again. Twilight was able to hold onto her confidence the whole way through the tunnels, but when she saw the bubble the situation finally caught up to her. She was brought back for a moment with a loud slamming noise.

Flick bounced off the grate and staggered backwards before barely steadying himself. Even then he looked ready to collapse. "Sweet gods above that hurt," he said as he grabbed his shoulder.

"Why did you do that?" Twilight asked.

"We still don't have magic... I thought about it... and decided on something stupid to see if it would work." He went to his knees and inhaled with his teeth tightly clenched.

"And it didn't."

"Stupid hurts..." he moaned. Twilight and Rainbow Dash helped him up.

"Are you okay?" Rainbow asked.

"Sort of. This was my plan. This stupid Grate." He kicked it when he spat out the words. "Now..." He stepped forward and gazed back out through the opening's in the grate.

"It's alright," Twilight said. "I'm sure there's another way out of these tunnels. Our friends are still okay, unless they're not. Maybe they're being killed or tortured and we're just going to be stuck in the dark down here."

"Twilight?" he asked, turning back towards her.

"We could starve down here." She didn't remember taking the first few steps, but she soon found herself pacing around the tunnel's interior. "We can't just eat rocks, that's ridiculous. Who eats rocks? We can't eat rocks. So we'll have to get out of here before we start eating rocks." She started breathing faster and faster. The room began to spin.

"Twilight, you're hyperventilating," somepony said. She couldn't tell who it was or why they would say something so ridiculous, so she ignored it and focused on what was really important.

"So we have to wander the tunnels. What if the torches go out? What if we get separated and don't even realize it? We could be walking along and say 'Hey Rainbow, are you eating rocks yet?' And she doesn't say anything back and I'm all alone and I don't know what to do and-"

"Twilight!" Flick yelled. Twilight stopped talking. Her frantic breathing continued. The tunnel's spinning slowed. Twilight forced her breathing to slow too. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And another. Once she had composed herself, she opened her eyes and saw her friends with very worried looks on their faces.

"I'm sorry. I just get a little anxious sometimes," she said, forcing a smile. It quickly dissipated. Flick looked over to Rainbow Dash.

"Is it usually this severe?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Dash said, "but not too often. Are you okay, Twilight?"

"I'm fine now," Twilight said. "I'm fine. I'm good. I'm a Princess. I can handle this." Twilight took one last, deep breath. She looked back out the grate, then at the others. "So this isn't our way out? We need a new plan."

"Agreed," Flick said. "No use dwelling on past failures, mistakes, and or miscalculations. Now is the time for brainstorming, ladies."

"What if," Dash started, "we all slam into the metal grate together at once? We'd be able to break it down then."

"I don't think that'll work," Twilight said. "If it does we'll be stuck in the city instead of being stuck in this tunnels.  Not much better if you ask me."

"Oh."

"What we need is a way past the bubble entirely," Flick pointed out. "If we can't think of anything else, we can go with Dash's idea, avoid any Royal Guards, and improvise a way past the walls."

"What about a teleportation spell?" Twilight asked.

"That could work if we had enough power, but neither of us can use any magic while under the bubble shield." Flick sat down and stroked his white and grey stubble. Rainbow sat down as well and put her hoof under her chin. Twilight thought about the situation for a moment.

"We're under the bubble, and we can't use magic," she said.

"Yes. We've established that," Flick responded.

"How deep do these tunnels go?"

"Well, there are several levels of catacombs. The ones in the actual castle, these tunnels within the hill that go down even further, and some lower down that I still haven't explored yet. Why do you ask?" Twilight smiled at him while he thought about it. Flick's face lit up with the realization. "Oh," he said, standing up. "Oh that is brilliant. It's so simple. How did we not think of it earlier?"

"I know, right?"

"Umm," Rainbow said, "what are you guys talking about?"

"You see, Rainbow," Twilight explained, "the bubble shield is covering the city, preventing everypony from using magic or flying. That's as long as they're within the bubble, within its influence. So maybe, if we go far enough below the bubble..."

"It won't affect us," Flick finished.

"Will that really work?" she asked when she stood up as well.

"It better, because it's all we've got," Flick said. Twilight nodded. Rainbow smiled and jumped in place, ready to go. They turned around and delved into the caverns below the Palace one last time.

To Twilight, it once again felt like they had been walking in the dark for hours. The blackness melted almost all sense of time while traversing it. The torches had fully gone out, and as they went deeper there stopped being any torches at all. They stumbled through the dark, closely staying behind Flick. He seemed almost as lost as the others, but he had a determination to get through the ordeal that Twilight admired. "Hey, Flick?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he half-heartedly called back to her. He appeared to be more focused on navigating their descent into the bowels of the earth than answering Twilight.

"I never got the chance to ask you about your order. The Children of Star Swirl, wasn't it."

"Yes, and no, you didn't get the chance to ask me. I'd say this isn't the time or place, but then again what else are we going to do to pass the time down here. What do you want to know?"

"So much," she exclaimed. Twilight thought that getting her mind onto other things would no doubt be relieving for her. "I don't know where to start. I've read so little about it. How long has it been around?"

"Centuries. Ever since the days of Star Swirl. As you no doubt know, Star Swirl never married and never fathered children. He was always focused on his work, so he viewed his students as his own children, and they viewed their students as children, and so did those students with their own. The learning experience and the passing-of-the-torch just have such a resonating effect between Master and Protege.

"Teachings were always passed down from Masters to Proteges, and the Proteges became full-fledged Children of Star Swirl and served any who they swore their oath to. Having a Child of Star Swirl in your court was once a point of pride for any country all over the world, and for the towns and cities for which a Child would gladly serve. But now our members are few and far between." He stumbled slightly when he said that but he never slowed his pace.

"Why is there so little information about the Children?" Twilight asked.

"We're a very secretive group of ponies. We keep knowledge of our practices to ourselves mostly, and like I said, we're a dying breed. Less and less young ponies care about pursuing knowledge these days. Masters are growing old and fading away without any Children of their own."

"But you wanted to learn."

"No, I didn't."

"Oh... then you must have had a great Master to convince you otherwise."

"Something like that."

"So, what was he like? How did he convince you to become a Child of Star Swirl?" Flick didn't say anything. He kept on walking in the dark. "Flick?"

He stopped for just a moment. "That was a long time ago," Flick said. For the first time, his age truly reflected in his voice. Twilight paid no mind to his years before. He always talked and moved with such energy that she didn't ever take notice. Even in the dark, with his face turned away from her, Twilight could see the lines on it. She could see just how old he was.

"Flick, do you have any Proteges. Any Children of Star Swirl?"

"Twilight, no offense to you, but I think this conversation is over." His sternness surprised her, maybe even frightened her. She could tell Rainbow felt it too. Flick kept walking.

They walked for a long time. In silence. Twilight wanted to apologize, but the words refused to come to her. She almost finally said something, but Flick stopped suddenly. His previous energy seemed to have returned to his voice. "Okay, problem. That's a big hole," he said.

They looked past him and down into the abyss. Unlike the tunnels, where it was darkness that their eyes adjusted to over time, the hole was complete darkness. Utter, and endless. Despite how long they stared, it remained. No pony could know how deep it went. "This is as far as the tunnels go, and my magic still doesn't work," Flick said.

Oh no, Twilight thought. Her magic still didn't work either, and neither her nor Rainbow Dash could fly or even hover off the ground. They must have been incredibly far below the surface. Was she wrong? Did the plan fail? Were they at the same place they started, just farther down? Twilight couldn't accept that.

"On three, we jump," she said.

Flick did a quick double-take. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"This is the deepest we can go by walking. That hole is our way of going deeper," she said as she peered over the edge. "If it works, then Rainbow and I can fly and catch you before we hit the bottom."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Then we'll probably die."

"Oh good," Rainbow said from the back, stretching out the word 'good' when she said it.

"Twilight," Flick said, "this plan is terrible. I'm sure there are other tunnels we can take if we go back. We may have missed them."

"We don't have time. We've already been wandering around down here for hours."

"Twilight, think logically about this." Twilight thought about it. Should I? Should I think about this more, or should I just take action? A moment passed. Then she walked off the edge.

"Twilight!" she heard Rainbow yell as the brightly colored mare dove after her. Twilight plunged into the abyss as she tried extending her wings. She still couldn't fly, and that didn't change as she fell. As every second passed, the fear that she was wrong came closer and closer, like the ground that approached her. The air blasted her as she descended. The fear made her close her eyes, and nothing changed. Then it happened. Her wings caught wind, and she stopped mid-air.

Twilight gave a gigantic sigh of relief. A streak of rainbow blazed downward past her, and Dash floated upwards to meet her. "I guess your plan worked," she said, smiling.

"Thank Celestia." Twilight couldn't help but giggle, and then she started to laugh as if she had no choice. Rainbow joined her and they laughed together for a brief few seconds. "Now we have to figure out how to get Flick without flying up there." Right on cue, she heard a distant scream that grew louder and closer as it continued. Flick sped by and Rainbow dashed and caught him just in time.

"Miss Sparkle," he said in Rainbow's arms, "you are fortunate that I have so much faith in you. I am extremely afraid of heights, and I will be looking upwards while we enact the next step."

Twilight smiled and cast an illumination spell. It felt good to have her magic again. They were all blinded for a moment by the light. "Now we just have to teleport all the way past the bubble," Flick said as he tested his magic along with Twilight

"I'll be honest, I'm not too sure if I can."

"Have you never teleported that far before?"

"No."

"Well, you jumped into a bottomless pit pretty confidently, so I think you can do this. Alright, Twilight. We're going to do this together. Rainbow, hold on tight to me. Twilight, slow your breathing. Close your eyes." She did as he asked. "This is going to take a lot of concentration and power, but I know you can do it, Twilight."

"Alright, I'm ready."

"Good, now picture the outside of the bubble. The outside of the city walls. Picture it as clearly as you can. Focus your mind on the sounds, the smells, the feel of the wind in your mane. You see the trees to your front, you hear the city to your back. You feel the grass underneath you. You don't look, but you just know that there's a sky above you. And... you're there."

She opened her eyes. The sun was setting over the horizon. She looked behind her, and saw the bubble covering the city. To the right of her were Flick and Rainbow standing there. She smiled widely. "It worked!" she exclaimed as she hugged her two friends.

Rainbow fell to the ground and rolled around. "Grass. Beautiful, not-at-all-rocky grass. I never thought I'd miss you."

"I'm afraid we don't have time to celebrate the wonderment of... grass. There's a village not very far from here. We can get a letter to Celestia there."

"Well let's get going the-" Twilight started until she collapsed, breathing heavily. Flick was on the ground too, clutching his chest. Rainbow got up from the ground and went to her friends.

"Don't worry," Flick said, gasping for air. "This is normal. Short distance teleportation is fairly simple, but teleporting that far and through that much material... that would take a lot out of the most powerful magic users. Creates a lot of strain on the body. Even for an alicorn. To a much larger extent, me." He sat up and leaned against a rock. Rainbow helped Twilight stagger to her hooves.  "It starts out easy. It's the aftermath that'll kill you. Okay. I'm good. Are you good?"

"I'm good," Twilight said as she steadied herself. Flick stayed on the ground for a bit while waiting for his breathing to normalize.

"I'm good too," Rainbow said.

"Miss Dash, you're not funny," Flick said, finally getting up, "and you didn't just take us each apart molecule by molecule and move us miles away with your brain."

"You're being very rude, Flick."

"Well I've been having kind of a bad day."

"So have I but I'm not being rude about it."

"I... I don't like you. Okay, let's get going." Twilight rolled her eyes at that. She had a feeling that Flick may have been sarcastic, but she wasn't entirely sure. She didn't say anything about it on their way to the village.

The village of Bastion's Gate was almost just that. It was hardly a few miles from the entrance to the city, and Flick said much of its prosperity comes from ponies on their way to Bastion who stay in the inns, buy the food, and trade some of their wares. Some ponies said that as the village grew it would one day just be absorbed by the city. Flick stopped them on the outskirts.

"Wait," he said. He squinted at the ponies in the distance. "Twilight, take my cloak. Wear it over your wings."

"Royal Guards?"

"Yes. They're over there in the town center, questioning villagers. We can't stay here overnight. We send a letter and we go as soon as possible." Twilight donned the cloak and they moved quietly into Bastion's Gate.

After purchasing food, camping supplies, and a quill and paper with the money in Flick's cloak pocket, Twilight inscribed a simple message. Dear Princess Celestia, Bastion is under attack. We believe it is the Equine Empire who are the perpetrators. Send help as soon as possible. We believe they are after something called Alicorn's Bane. Any information on it is incredibly important. Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle.

"You forgot the Princess part," Flick pointed out. "Isn't it supposed to be Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

"Oh... it's already written. Might as well send it," she said. Flick shrugged. They sent the letter off in a puff of smoke.

The response came quick enough. Dear Twilight, I am sending aid as soon as possible, but it will take a number of days to reach you. Help will arrive as soon as possible. They mustn't get their hooves on Alicorn's Bane. Sincerely, Celestia.

"Well there it is," Flick said. "We have to get to Alicorn's Bane before the Equine Empire does."

"Do we know where to start?" Twilight asked.

"The tales say its last resting place was a temple to the north. We can start there. I suggest we go before anypony here notices us." Twilight looked around at the ponies going about their business before the moon came out. Almost all they talked about was Bastion. Most said the bubble was just precaution, but they still speculated about exactly why the bubble was there, and why no ponies were going in, but plenty of ponies were coming out. Royal Guards poured out of the city constantly. They did little to stem the speculation. All they did was say the bubble was just a drill and then they would ask their questions. Flick was determined that they leave before any guards noticed them. They walked along the road leading north, ready to set out.

Twilight stopped. "What's wrong?" Rainbow asked.

"Don't tell us you're having second thoughts," Flick said.

"It's not that," Twilight said,"it's just that... we're going to be so far from our friends. We don't know what's even happened to them. I'm starting to think this may not entirely be the best way to help them."

Flick put his hoof on her shoulder. "Twilight, two things. First, that's the exact definition of having second thoughts. Second, as a Child of Star Swirl in your service allow me to advise you on this. I had my doubts about the plan too, but now we know that it's really all we have.  That's not what convinced me. What convinced me to go along with this incredibly stupid plan is you and Rainbow. You two have a love of your friends that is real, like nothing I've seen in a long time. It sounds cheesy and stupid, I know. But there's something there. I've seen it. I bet Celestia saw it too. It's in both of you." He Rainbow a soft smile. "Rainbow came up with the idea, and you supported it, because of your friends. That is something a lot more ponies need these days. Like I said before, I'm with you to the end." Twilight's eyes began to water. She hugged Flick tightly.

"I'm so glad I met you," she said. He hugged her back.

"Come here you big saps!" Rainbow joined in as well.

"Okay. Okay. That's enough. I feel like I'm going to choke on all this emotional stuff," Flick said. "Well, there's nothing left to do but start walking."

"You know, most of us have wings," Dash said.

"Yeah, but I don't. When we're out of sight of Bastion's Gate we can start flying if you want, but you two will have to carry our saddlebags, and me."

"On second thought, we can walk for awhile." They started, but not before Twilight looked back at Bastion. That was all she needed, and they began their journey.