Training begins

“Wow, where am I?” questioned Twilight.

She found herself on top of a stone like structure platform where a great castle was before her and around it was a large network of snake-like bridges, yellow clouds and pink skies. She marvelled little white clouds that moved back and forth nearby, all going in a fixed direction.

“Apologies I’m late,” said this meek voice.

Twilight turned and saw before her a yellow pony with wings and pink long hair. She wore white robes.

“Fluttershy? What are you doing here? What am I doing here?”

“I’m afraid you died back on Earth and so have arrived to here, the Next dimension.”

“So wait, if I’m dead? Why do I still have my body?”

“Well, normally you’d lose your body and just be your soul, but due to the fact that great heroes, like yourself are treated with respect, they let you retain your physical body.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but we can’t let ourselves get into this, we have to go and see King Yemma.”

“Wait, before we do, I need to tell you something.”

“Is it to do with your battle with Dawnshade?”

“Uh, yes, you know about it?”

“I saw everything that was going on through Rainbow Dash,” spoke Fluttershy as she led Twilight into the castle. “We have a connection as you’ll recall, because we created the Orbs of harmony together. So I have learnt about you being a Unicorn, me being a Pegasi and the other unicorns about to follow in his wake.”

“Wait there’s going to be another-.” She startled at this giant red pony over ten times her size, with a fuzzy black beard and silly purple hat working at his work desk. Around him, about Twilight’s height, were blue and red goats in white office shirts that seemed busy at work. “Woah!”

“This here is the reception desk, where it’s decided where the dead belong,” replied Fluttershy.

“Hm? Fluttershy? What are you doing here?” asked the large pony.

“A good point, what are you doing here? Did you die as well?” asked Twilight.

“Oh no, I’m able to make short visits to the Next dimension. This here is King Yemma by the way,” answered Fluttershy. “Um, Yemma, sorry for the unexpected visit, but you see two unicorns are coming to the continent I watch over and their intentions are evil and we don’t have the ability to stop them, even once, Twilight’s friends revive her.”

“What’s it to me?”

“Well um, just to answer your question, the unicorns are after the six Orbs of harmony and they intend to use them to cause evil things that may throw off the balance of the universe.”

“Those Orbs of harmony again, I have no idea why they exist when all they do is threaten balance. But yeah, what do you want me to do about this?”

“Allow Twilight to run through Snake way and go to Zecora to be trained?”

“Sigh, very well, but to me that’s just wasting time. After all, I’m the only one who’s ever been able to run across Snake way, what makes you think she can? Especially in one month?”

“One month!” screamed Twilight. “That isn’t long. How much time will it take me to even get across Snake way?”

“Well, it took me two weeks and-,” said Yemma.

“Two weeks, oh my gosh!” She started running in one spot frantically. “I really have to start now if I’m to get any time to train with this Zecora?”

“I’m sure you’ll make it in time to receive the training and make it back. For now I will be trying to gather who I can to help us in the upcoming battle and train them as best as I can. You may also want to know Rainbow Dash has also taken Spike to also train him.”

“Not sure I’m comfortable with Spike being involved, but I guess I don’t have time to talk about this.”

“Yes, you’ll need to go now before you waste anymore time,” said Fluttershy and then pointed her at an open door. “That there’s Snake way. I’ll need to go back as well now.”

“Okay, thanks Fluttershy and good luck preparing everyone!” shouted Twilight dashing off.

“Good luck to you as well and hope to see you again!”

Galloping through Snake way, in a hurry to get to Zecora’s to save much time as possible, Twilight said to herself. “I’d probably get there faster if I flew.” She then sprang off her feet, but was surprised when she was smacked back down onto the ground. She struggled back up. “Alright, don’t know what that just was, but I’m assuming this place has much different laws of physics.” She then shook her head and continued on her gallop. “I’ll just have to keep on running then if that’s the way this place wants!”

*

In a fashion store inside of town, a white beautiful pony with purple hair looked underneath her the reception counter through clothes and fabrics.

“Sigh, can’t find anything in this store,” she said in a high mannered tone. She then shouted out. “Sweetie Belle! Dear, have you seen the fabrics that I recently ordered?”

“No! Sis!” shouted a white small young white pony with pink and purple hair as she tottered through the store with some materials over her.

“Oh, I just can’t find anything around her.”

“Ex-squeeze me,” said this mocking tone.

“Ouch!” yelled Rarity as she bumped her head against the counter. The furniture had been thrown off its feet and crashed back down, wrecked into pieces. “Whoops, sorry that strength of mine, how… Pinkie Pie- Cheerlie?”

“Hi, Rarity!” The two hugged her.

“It’s good to see you again, but what are you doing here?”

“Yeah, what are you doing here!” shouted Sweetie Belle as jumped at them and ended up knocking everyone over.

After the recovered from that and got back up. Pinkie Pie said in her high chirpy voice. “We’re here because we need your help.”

“She’s right,” said Cheerlie.

“Well, how about you fill me in about what’s going on?”

The two then explained about Dawnshade and Twilight and Rainbow Dash stopping him. They had even told about how Twilight was a unicorn.

“Oh my gosh- Twilight’s gone?” asked Rarity in shock.

“She can’t be,” said Sweetie Belle. “She was the strongest of us all.”

“She’s gone for now. But we’re going to revive her with the Orbs of harmony. Right now though we have a more serious situation,” said Cherliee. “Before Dawnshade died, he was able to make contact with two other unicorns, both supposedly over five times stronger than him and are now on their way to collect the Orbs of harmony. So what’s happening is that Fluttershy has told us that Twilight’s now on some sort of training course and preparing herself in the Next dimension.”

“Fluttershy also asked us to go to her place to special train together for the upcoming battle against the big bad unicorns,” said Pinkie Pie suddenly in Rarity’s face.

“Well, it’s been a while since I last fought and I’ve got my own business. But if it’s for the sake of the world and you really need all the help you can get, I’ll do it!”

“Awesome, my sisters going to fight again and save the world!”

“That’s not very lady like Sweetie Belle,” sniped Rarity.

“Sorry.”

“Would you guys hurry it up?” asked this small stumpy male light blue pony with buck teeth and a short mane. He carried a sword strapped over to his back. “I want to go to this super special training of Fluttershy’s now!”

“Oh my word, you brought Snip?” questioned Rarity.

“Fluttershy said she needed anyone who could fight, so we brought Snip because he can fight and he’s good at it!” replied Pinkie Pie.

“Sigh, true, Snip is a good fighter I admit that. But does he even have what it takes to go up against these crude unicorns?”

“I hope so!”

“I do and I’ll show you once the unicorns arrive. Now let’s go!”

*

Spike woke up. He smacked his lips together and scratched himself, before he looed around. With a scream, he realised he was in the sky, high above the ground. He screamed even more when he started to plummet down.

“Please wake up! Please wake up!”

He crashed into the water, deep underneath and left an enormous splash behind him. As he was below the surface, he didn’t know how to swim, all he could do was scramble his with his limbs.

Quickly began to run out of breath, Spike thought this was going to be the end, until he heard something move behind him. It grabbed onto his tail with blunt teeth and swung him across the water and threw him. He propelled out of the river and landed onto the shore.

He shivered from both the chill and the scare. Damp and wet, he looked around him to see he was in this grassland valley that was basically out in the middle of no one and nowhere near civilisation.

Emerging out from the water appeared Rainbow Dash. “Take it you’re up?”

“What did you do that for?”

“To test your reaction, athletic ability and quick thinking, all of which you sucked at. Also it was to get you to fully wake up.”

“Wake up? For what?”

“For your training,” replied Rainbow Dash towered over him. “Congratulation, you’ve just been drafted into Rainbow Dash’s first and only boot camp, consider yourself privileged.”

“Boot camp for what, why?”

“Two unicorns are coming and they mean business. We don’t stand much of a chance against them at the moment. But we’ve got to get everything we can grab to throw at them and one of those things is you.”

“Me? Are you crazy? I’m just a baby dragon?”

“A baby dragon who managed to sock it to that Unicorn, Dawnshade. I don’t know how you did that, but I bet I can I teach you to control it through hard work.”

“I don’t like this, where’s Twilight?”

“Hate to break it to you, but Twilight’s gone. Sacrificed herself to get rid of Dawnshade,” said Rainbow Dash, with no sympathy in her tone. It came to as a shock for Spike, who started to weep. “And guess what, probably wouldn’t have happened if you had better control over that power. But take it this way, how about getting control over that power to save the world; you’ll at least have something for Twilight to return to when her friends revive her.”

“Well… I guess.”

She slammed her head against his. “You don’t have much of a choice. The unicorns will come for you eventually as well and will probably have a second chance to eliminate Twilight and then there’s me who isn’t giving you the choice to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime to train with me!”

“Okay! Okay! Where do we begin then- this training?”

“Right now, start running!”

“To where?”

“As if I care! Just start running until I tell you to stop! Move it! And be fast otherwise I’ll trample all over you!”

The Pegasus then started to chase after the baby dragon out of the shore and through the landscape.

*

“Why is it that we can’t train as well to fight the unicorns?” asked Applebloom as she jumped on the couch with two other ponies, one Sweetie Bella at Granny Smith’s home.

“Yeah, I want to be able to fight beside my sister, so I can give a kick the first unicorn that invades us!”

“Darn tooting!” said Granny Smith as she jumped on a chair next to them.

“Would you please get a hold of yourselves?” asked Cherilee. “I hate to say this but some of you aren’t yet ready and the rest of you, well… your times been and you need to trust it to these ponies. Plus we have a more important task.”

“We do?” asked Applebloom.

“Yes, it’s up to us to collect the Orbs of harmony so we can bring back Twilight, so that she can save the day!”

All three of them stared at Cherilee for a moment, but then immediately went back to their bounces on the catch and yelled. “We want to fight! We want to fight!”

Cheerlie just gawked and slipped her head back down.

*

“Thank you all for coming,” said Fluttershy in front of the five ponies, Big Macintosh, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Snip and Rarity, all proudly at attention. They stood on a great flat wooden platform, the size of a great mansion that rested on top of a giant tree. On the platform was a simple wooden home behind Fluttershy. Next to the pegasus was a small white bunny who wore a red sleeveless shirt and turban, with his arm folded and looked at the ponies in an intimidating fashion. “As you know, two unicorns are on their way here and mean harm. They’re strong, but we can’t just let them come here and take what they want and whenever they want. I’m hoping by gathering all of you here, we will repel the unicorns.”

“You can count on us, Fluttershy. When does the training begin?” questioned Applejack.

“Now.”

“Okay let’s get to it!”

“Give us what you’ve got,” said Rarity.

“I’m ready!” shouted Pinkie Pie.

“Eyyup,” said Big Macintosh.

“Alright, Angel will watch over your training,” said Fluttershy as she walked into her house.

“Huh?” said all the ponies.

“What?” Fluttershy looked back at them.

“Aren’t you going to teach us some special moves you taught, Twilight? After all, when she came back from training up here, she was like way times more powerful. Why don’t you do the same for us?” questioned Applejack.

“Oh, well, to be honest. I didn’t really teach Twilight anything?”

“Come again?”

“I didn’t really teach Twilight anything, to be honest. Now if you excuse me, I have a few things to take care of if you don’t mind,” said Fluttershy sweetly and walked away.

All the ponies then stood with their mouths hung in disbelief. The bunny, Angel, however continued to glare at them.