Twilight Sparkle reshelved the last book and sighed in relief. She'd been shelving books for hours, because Spike, who usually reshelved them, was currently cooking dinner. Usually Twilight just went out to eat, but they were running a little low on funding, and Spike insisted that he couldn't dent his pride by asking a magical white princess for some funding because he'd spent it all on gems. So Twilight had eventually complied, if only to appease him. She was planning on asking Celestia after the baby dragon fell asleep.
Twilight let out another great sigh of relief, crumpling down to the ground in exhaustion. Pinkie had held another one of her signature 'Pinkie Parties' at the library the night before, so the entire place was a mess. The girls had helped clean up of course, but it had been late and so they'd all gone home, leaving the majority of the work for Twilight and Spike the next morning. Spike had helped, and so had Owlawiscious, but they'd all left eventually; Spike to make dinner, Owlawiscious to catch up on lost sleep. Of course, Twilight couldn't blame Owlawiscious. She had practically threw her poor owl out of the library because the exhausted avian was dead on her talons.
Twilight Sparkle groaned, heaving her tired and sore body up,then down the stairs that led to the basement. There was an experiment that Princess Celestia needed finished immediately. So she was determined to finish it today. Stifling a yawn, Twilight staggered down the stairs and into the basement. She immediately got to work on the experiment.
Twilight was so tired, she didn't even notice when smoke began filtering out from underneath the door, and the air began getting a little too hot and stuffy. Twilight did notice when there was a dramatic spike in her temperature reader that she was using as her Constant for the experiment. The temperature went from a calm seventy-four degrees, to a burning one-hundred. Inhaling sharply, Twilight came abruptly to her senses. The air was practically sizzling, and Twilight noticed with a shock that her coat was slick with sweat. Stumbling back and suddenly panting heavily, Twilight stumbled over the delicate machinery that she'd forgotten was behind her. The expensive equipment fell to the ground with a resounding crash, a fire immediately springing up where the potions and metal gears had fallen.
Reaching for the magic embedded in her horn's base, Twilight cast it out of her horn as water. She showered it on the flames, and they sputtered out. Heaving a sigh of relief, Twilight began to turn around, but she had barely moved a hoof before the fire sprang up again full force, this time beginning to spread out and catching on the walls and floor around her.
Twilight immediately turned tail and ran up the stairs after it became obvious that the fire wasn't going out by normal nor magical means. She reached the door and wrenched it open so hard it flung completely off its hinges and slammed into the far wall where it was quickly consumed by the flames.
The entire library was a blazing inferno. The books she had so carefully shelved mere hours before were already being devoured by the mass of orange, and the flames were licking their way towards her. She inhaled sharply, and was immediately sent into a coughing fit as smoke filtered into her lungs. She turned towards where the door was, but found only a massive wall of flames. The door was blocked.
She could feel the heat on her face. She stood, mesmerized by the dancing flames in front of her. Some long forgotten instinct surfaced. It was fight or flight now, and her instincts were urging her to fly. Fly away, away from the fire, the fire that hurt and burned and attacked without mercy.
Whipping away from the door so fast she was just a lavender blur, Twilight ran up the stairs that were so far were fire-free. There was a balcony in her bedroom; she could fly out and to safety from there. Taking great gulps of air, she rested her legs for a moment. Some kind of sixth sense was urging her onward, telling her to quickly escape. Her brain rebelled.
Just a minute . . .
Just one moment, the she'd hurry out to safety. It would all be okay, she knew for a fact that fire didn't travel that fast, so it was safe to say she was fine for the moment.
It was a lapse in judgement she would regret for the rest of her life.
Too late she realized her mistake; the fire was upon her, burning her fur and stinging her eyes. Something was wrong with the fire, it was moving forward at an unnatural rate. Spreading her sooty wings, Twilight rose into the smoky air. Ignoring the pain, Twilight flapped her wings as fast as they would go. A hazy black archway was ahead; she recognized it as the doorway to her bedroom. She began drifting downward, but flapped her wings frantically as the fire seared her hooves. Ducking down and blinking rapidly in an effort to get the smoke out of her eyes, Twilight swooped swiftly through the doorway.
Her room was on fire; the raging inferno had already spread. And the balcony-! It was on fire too, though the flames were small. She could still make it through. Twilight closed her eyes briefly, and then her instincts came to life.
Some strange, long forgotten power was taking over her brain, shoving the part of her that was sane, the part of her that was Twilight Sparkle, to the back, into a mental cell where she could only watch as her body acted without her consent.
Smoke was quickly filling the tiny space. She couldn't see the door to the outside, the ceiling, or the walls. She let out a mighty roar - the likes of which hadn't been seen in centuries - and flared her wings, flattening her ears to the sides of her head, and baring her teeth. A fire of her own had alighted in her usually calm violet eyes.
Then she flapped her wings once, propelling her to where she sensed her balcony was, flapped her wings once more, then flared them out beside her.
The world exploded in a cacophony of pain.
Her back and hind legs were burning and seared horribly, her forelegs had glass embedded in them from where her front hooves had burst through the glass screen, and blood was dripping down the left side of her face. Unconsciously, she flatted her wings to her sides, but couldn't fold them up all the way for the pain.
She felt the wind through her fur - and realized with a jolt that she was in midair.
Twilight Sparkle fell like a rock. Fire was streaming behind her like a comet; her tail was streaming yellow orange flames, as was her back legs. Black was crawling in at the edge of her vision. She weakly tried to raise her wings to slow her fall, but only her left wing responded, her right hung motionless at her side. She flared her left wing, then began spinning out of control. She briefly recognized the ground below her, and weakly brought her wing up to shield her face, before she heard a horrible crunching sound and blood sprayed from her broken wing onto her face. She skidded along the ground, then lay still.
Her wing was trapped beneath her head, she could feel it folded practically in half under her body's weight. Her head was tilted at an odd angle, her broken wing covering the already bloody left side of her face and soaking her whole face completely with blood.
Her one good eye fluttered open.
Rainbow Dash's pale, slack jawed face swam before her eyes. Twilight let out a muffled moan of pain.
"Twilight!"
Ponies were calling her name, shouting it out, telling others to get back. She vaguely heard her friends calling her name, and saw them leaning over her, eyes wide, faces pale and scared. Then her good right eye rolled up into her head and she knew no more.
Author's Note
Thank You for reading! Please comment below and tell me what you think. This is my first story on fimfiction.net, but don't hold back on the critsism. I love it when people tell me what's wrong with my story, so I can fix it. Just keep in mind if it's an opinionated criticism, that I can't please everybody.
Also, keep in mind that I'm doing this on my iPad, so some grammar mistakes I can't help, but I will try to fix.
Author's Note
Sorry this chapter is really short, but I felt really bad keeping you guys waiting like this, and so decided 'what the heck! I'll just throw what I've got out there and see what happens!'
And so, here you have it.
Chapter 2
Shining Armor smiled. His day - heck his year! - was going better than he could've hoped. He was married to a beautiful alicorn, leader of a country full of crystal ponies, and his little sister was now an alicorn Princess as well as his wife. Except for the brief bout with the Changelings they'd had at the wedding, and that spat with King Sombra, his life so far was wonderful. Nothing could ruin this.
And that one thought is what jinxed it.
A young royal Pegasus guard was flapping across the lawn towards himself and Cadence. Shining looked closer, trying to see what rank the pony was. The midday sun was glaring off of his gold plated armor, making the sun on the breastplate look almost like the real thing.
"Wait . . . That's one of Princess Celestia's guards! " he exclaimed in surprise.
"Hmmm?" Cadence asked from beside him. Her eyes were closed, head tilted up toward the sun.
"One of Celestia's guards is running up the field towards us!" He said, getting back up to his hooves to meet him. Cadence immediately opened her eyes and followed her husband's gaze.
"That's odd," she commented. "I wonder if there's some kind of emergency." She got to her hooves as well.
The guard finally reached them, chest heaving and panting heavily like he'd flown the entire way there nonstop. He saluted his old captain.
"Shining Armor, sir," he panted, than straitened up. "Urgent notification from Canterlot Hospital."
"Canterlot Hospital?" Cadence asked in bewilderment.
"The Golden Oaks Library was caught in a terrible fire last night. Twilight Sparkle was still inside."
"What?!" Shining shouted. "Is she hurt?! Is she okay?! She didn't get injured, did she?!"
"She's going to be alright, right?!" Cadence asked slightly hysterically, cutting off her husband.
"I was getting to that, sir. She was injured extensively, losing a lot of blood. She had to be taken to Canterlot Hospital and rushed into emergency surgery." He said quickly. Then added, "Sir!"
"WHAT?!" He very nearly screamed.
"It's okay Shining," Cadence soothed, resting a hoof on his shoulder. "Just take deep breaths."
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment, then snapped open his eyes open. "Anything else?"
"No, sir!"
"We're both going to Canterlot." He turned to the guard. "Go find a pony called Light Blade. Tell him he's in charge until we return."
The guard saluted, then sank to the ground in exhaustion as soon as they turned away.
Shining Armor and Princess Cadence took off for the train station.
The train arrived at Canterlot within the next couple of hours, and Shining and Cadence were the first to get off. They ran up towards the whitewashed building in the distance that was the Hospital.
"I hope she's okay," worried Cadence as they ran.
Shining didn't respond; he just continued running, his eyes fixed on the doors to the hospital. There were too many ponies! He wouldn't get there in time; he had a terrible feeling in his gut that he'd gotten only once before, when his little sister had had a near death experience with the flu when she was younger.
It was a roiling knot that twisted his heart and made him want to throw up, lay on the ground and sob like a little filly, and go out and kill a thousand ponies so that his Little Twily could live.
And he knew.
His little sister was in danger. Mortal danger.
His horn flared to life, glowing with such a terrifying intensity it was almost red. He disappeared a millisecond after with a slight pop. His wife followed soon after.
