Ever since the banishment of Nightmare Moon, the ponies lived under the rule of Celestia, which thankfully never had to bring back her armor again to save her ponies. And without the Elements of Harmony being active, she suspected that nothing would happen that her full power would be needed once again.

This day she was on her way to the throne room and decided to change sceneries, making her way through a corridor that allowed visage to the barracks of the Royal Guards. She quickly noticed the influx of ponies without armor there and remembered that today were coming new recruits and she decided to look at them a little. Looking from a window, she watched the line of the new recruits that had just come and smiled. There was determination in the eyes of plenty of them, but the recruit to most call her attention from this far had his eyes closed and a huge smile in his face. Curious, she flapped her wings and, through the window, she beat the sergeant that was going to greet them, stopping his path. As he bowed to his Princess, Celestia grinned.

“Rise, my little pony. I will ask to talk with a couple recruits myself before you could continue your job,” Celestia said gently, allowing for him to deny if she couldn’t do that.

“Certainly, your highness!” the sergeant answered.

Celestia, with a grin, then walked behind the corner in her usual regalia: a full set of golden pony shoes carefully adorned, a rather large collar around her neck with a purple gem encrusted over her chest and above her head, just behind her horn, a three-pointed crown with another purple gem aligned precisely with the central tip of her crown.

As the Princess turned around the corner and walked towards them, all the recruits bowed to her. As typical, she closed her eyes and smiled at her ponies antics. However, before she could say anything, everypony heard somepony say: “POW!”

All eyes turned to the pony who said that. He was the pegasus colt which Celestia saw with eyes closed and smiling when she looked through the window. He was still smiling, but with eyes now open and the head pointed at Celestia’s chest, as a unicorn pointing the horn. “And thanks to your antics as guards, you let your Princess be attacked by a unicorn. You’re going to join the Royal Guards. You show respect to Princess Celestia with a salute!” And after he said, he smiled and made a proper salute to the Princess.

Celestia, which was at first surprised, now smiled warm at him, as the sergeant was ready to dismiss the punk. However, the Princess looked at him with a smile, “An interesting point of view, my little pony. May I know your name?”

The bright yellow coated pegasus colt with short light blue mane shocked above his head and a matching tail grinned, “Yes, my Princess. My name is Lightning Dash.”

“You can rest now, Lightning Dash,” Celestia said as the pegasus relaxed his pose. “You seem to come from a military family. Am I right?”

“No Princess. I’m from Cloudsdale and my family forms more weather control specialists. I’m the black sheep that decide to join the Royal Guard and I really threw myself at it from very young age. I educated myself in plenty of the ways of the Royal Guards.”

“And may I ask what your motivation to joining the Royal Guards is?” she asked.

He smiled at Celestia, “The first is to challenge my family’s destiny as weather control ponies. The Dash family is a name in the field. The second, and more important, is that I made a promise to my sister, and she to me, one that I won’t be talking about unless it’s really important, Princess. I guess it’s enough to say that I’m willing to protect ponies from any harm, even from other ponies.”

“You’re joining the Royal Guard to protect the ponies from other ponies? Why not the police force?” Celestia asked, curiosity aroused.

Lightning Dash wings flickered and he chuckled softly, “Resources, Princess. I can do a lot more being a field-active Royal Guard than a full-time field police member. Royal Guards have to put a much more straight face to the public, I know, but they also have a lot more leeway.”

“I see. So you’re thinking forward already.”

“Yes, Princess.”

Celestia smiled at him and nodded. The Princess then looked around and pointed a hoof gently at another colt, an earth pony with rust-colored fur and flame-like orange hair and tail. He was a lot stronger and sturdier than the others ponies in the line and was looking at Princess silently. And his silent demeanor was what called Celestia’s attention. When she pointed, he bowed quickly before presenting himself properly to the Princess with a salute.

“I noticed that you, from all others, were the only one to stay still. May I ask your name, why you’re so silent and the reason you joined the Royal Guard?”

“Blaze. Personal reasons. Confidential,” the colt answered much to Princess Celestia’s surprise.

The murmurs between almost everypony else only stopped after Celestia sighed, “I see… Well… I have a few other matters to attend to. Your sergeant will resume his normal activities.”

As Princess Celestia walked outside of their sight vision, she focused and teleported back to her window curiously watching the two colts. There were also a few others to call her attention, but nothing compared to these two. She felt something different about them.

“Everypony has a magic of their own…” she had to force herself to remember. “Instinctively, ponies are always feeling and projecting this magic…”

Then she closed her eyes and focused on feeling the magic of those recruits. Then she had a great surprise: there were five magic presences stronger than other recruits, not counting the already members of the Guards: two earth ponies, one unicorn and two pegasus. One of the earth ponies and one of the pegasus were Blaze and Lightning Dash respectively. Celestia, though, had to go and take care of other business from the morning. Even so, she made a mental note to see how the group of five strangely magic-filled ponies was faring.

****

Celestia was finishing her paperwork for the morning and preparing to have her lunch when a pegasus royal guard knocked on her door twice, waited a little, and entered without being announced, quickly bowing respectfully, before blurting out: “Sorry for interrupting you, Princess, but the drill sergeant in charge of the recruits requested your presence immediately on the gardens!”

“Oh mine… What happened?” Celestia asked genuinely surprised.

“He didn’t say, but I guess it has something to do with the show those two colts are pulling at the training grounds! They battle as experienced fighters!”

“What?” Celestia’s eyes widened and she quickly got up from her seat. “Take me to them!”

The pegasus then lead Celestia to the training grounds and just as she reached there, much to her surprise, he say Lightning Dash and Blaze sparring. The yellow pegasus gave a strong flying kick that was blocked by the earth pony with a forehoof as he avoided the second kick by ducking under it. The counter-attack came as an uppercut which the pegasus had only to flap his wings once to keep out of reach and attack with a potent kick down. Instead of blocking, though, Blaze punched against the kick and the impact caused a small impact wave to bristle her fur. When she looked back at them, the dust causing her to block her eyes, she saw both colts exchanging punches and kicks, blocking and avoiding as needed, in a mostly balanced battle.

”Princess!” the sergeant approached her and bowed quickly, respectfully, and then rose again. “I don’t know what to make with them! These two are sparring in this rhythm for the last half hour!”

Besides her ear understood what he said, she was determined to understand better what was happening there. She raised her horn and at the appropriated time shot two small energy bolts at them. Both were able to deflect the attack, Blaze by shoving it to a side with a kick and Lightning Dash by giving a flying back-roll, kicking it up. Both colts then turned to Princess Celestia and then bowed to her, as did all other recruits.

“Lightning Dash and Blaze… I was informed there were three more?” Celestia asked without looking at the instructor.

“Yes, Princess… Ice Sapphire, Scarlet Boulder and Golden Breeze…”

Upon hearing their names, a unicorn, and earth pony and a pegasus, all mares, gave a step ahead and bowed to Princess Celestia. She stood in silence for a bit longer time. “All five of you, come with me,” Celestia said seriously.

They all walked, following the Sun Princess towards the castle, Lightning Dash and Blaze never breaking the stare between them as if they were just waiting the Princess to leave them to restart fighting. It was the beautiful golden coated pegasus mare that stopped them, by entering between both colts, her long light orange hair and tail moving slowly as they were affected by her quick dash to the colts.

Turning to Lightning Dash, she whispered, “Stop that, Dash! If the Princess notices it you can be in deep problems!”

“She knows,” Blaze said, now that someone intertwined, looking straight forward. “Haven’t you noticed she followed our movements to the point she attacked for us to easily block or evade without hurting anypony else?”

“Princess Celestia’s fighting skills are something. I mean, she could easily be the best fighter in all Equestria,” the light blue unicorn mare agreed, her curly deep sapphire blue mane and tail in a nice contrast to her fur. It was not uncommon to see ponies naked around, but Ice Sapphire was wearing a stunning bold outfit with a deep ‘V’ cut around her neck ending at half of her chest, closing just under her forelegs and then slowly following to her hindlegs, where a large belt crossed around her waist and allowed her dress to cover most of her cutie mark, a hexagonal sapphire with an ice crystal shining inside, and tail.

“Stop you!” Golden Breeze called their silence. Her gorgeous body was, as most ponies preferred, uncovered by any clothing allowing the deep dark yellow fur show the contrast of the brown leaves floating on her flank.

“Let them be, Breeze,” Lightning Dash said with a smile, caressing the mare’s mane. His cutie mark was a large lightning bolt cut by another longer and thiner lightning bolt, which seemed to be dashing. “They know they’re in the presence of the Princess.”

The mare blushed slightly but nodded. It was Scarlet Boulder the next to speak, sing actually, “Lightning Dash and Golden Breeze under a tree, kissi--”

Golden Breeze’s left forehoof closed the muzzle of the red coated mare with puffy pink hair and tail. Scarlet Boulder’s cutie mark was some kind bright boulder, a couple shades darker than her coat. “Stop that already, okay?” the golden mare squeezed Scarlet Boulder's muzzle before releasing it.

They reached the Royal Castle’s garden and they noticed that the destination was the labyrinth. Celestia turned to them, never stopping her walk, and said simple: “Find me.”

Then, the Princess ran inside the labyrinth, Lightning Dash quickly followed as the others had mixed answers to that. After the first turn, though, Celestia was going to speed down a little when she felt Lighting Dash approaching fast. Deciding on another approach, Celestia focused her magic and teleported straight to the center of the labyrinth, where she would just watch as they all moved around looking for her.

****

Ice Sapphire had noticed something the others haven’t got quite at first. This wasn’t going to be a ‘follow me’ contest. Princess Celestia could easily teleport randomly at will to drive them crazy. She focused then on the highest probability: the princess would be in the center of the labyrinth. And there was no better way to reach the center than straight at it. Whenever she met with a plant wall, she would focus her magic and shoot against the leaves and trunks, making an opening for her to get through. Behind her, though, the wall regrew.

As she walked calmly straight to the center, Ice Sapphire thought to herself, “The Princess must be testing us. Better I get ready to some kind of battle.”

As she made her way through the maze, though, from the live wall in front of her, a figure similar to a pony appeared, but made totally of wood, leaves and vines. Two glowing orbs stood where its eyes should be and both forehooves ending on spiked vine-like claws. Its body seemed more like armor, though, with a wooden head, chest, shoulders and legs. Ice Sapphire quickly took a defensive instance, her gaze never leaving the creature.

Suddenly, it lunched forward, bringing its spiky hands to a punch at Ice Sapphire. The unicorn though, just jumped sideways to avoid and kicked on its chest, throwing the creature a few steps backwards. However, she hasn’t waited for it to recover, focusing her magic at her horn and shooting from it a blast of water against the tree-monster. It hit the wall strongly and fell sat on its hump, head down.

Ice Sapphire looked at it and turned to leave and follow her track. But soon her ears heard the sound of leaves moving and she moved just in time to avoid the vines of one of the forehooves extending against her. She looked down to see the damage: a bit of her dress had been cut by the monster. Her gently eyes suddenly turned cold and she looked back at the creature. When the monster tried that attack a second time, the vine erupted from the monster hand, but Ice Sapphire just moved aside and stomped over the vines with a hoof. Forcing more her hoof, she could feel the vines, starting from her hoof, began to freeze, until the whole body of the creature was turned into an ice stone.

“Nopony touch the dress made by Rarity!” Ice Sapphire raised one of her hooves “Absolutely nopony!” when the hoof came down, the head of the monster was utterly shattered. She stood up looking around, “I hope you’re enjoying the show, Princess.”

And then, she returned to her walk.

****

Scarlet Boulder was smiling as she made turn after turn of the labyrinth. She was hopping on her hooves in a way that many ponies would say is impossible. She would then stop at a ramification of the path, look to all sides close her eyes, spin her body as fast as she could and, when she stopped, she followed the path ahead of her.

“Princess! Where are you?” she called singing, her smile never fading.

Often she would hear a sound or another of leaves moving around. But never had she felt the urge to look for its source. Then, she reached another ramification and instead of spinning; she turned to a side and kept hopping. Suddenly, though she reached a dead-end, but kept a smile in her face.

“So, what you want?” she asked still looking the wall ahead.

Noticing she wouldn’t receive an answer, she jumped forward, towards the wall, and used it as a platform to make a somersault stopping behind of a pony-like plant statue, which turned to her ready to punch. She moved her face to a side, smiling and avoiding the hit, before trying a punch of her own.

The monster was thrown backwards, crossing through the wall and lifting a heavy dust cloud as it slid through the ground. Scarlet Boulder followed it through the hole before it closed. “Come on! You wouldn’t give up with a punch like that!” she called.

From the dust, five spiked vine-like fingers tried to wrap around her neck, but the earth pony just grinned and jumped sideways. The vines held on the wall and pulled the monster against Scarlet Boulder ready to attack again. The reddish pony, though, slid below the plant-pony, raising behind it and kicking its back. As the creature hit the wall and fall back, it saw Scarlet Boulder jumping over it and stomping strongly against its chest, making wood splints and leaves, as well as a heavy dust cloud, spread across a large area.

However, the earth pony smiled and returned her hopping, looking for Princess Celestia.

****

Again she found a ramification in her path. Golden Breeze, though, opened her wings and closed her eyes. She had a subtle talent: her wings could, somehow, react to magic what helped guide her through the maze. As smoke in a labyrinth cave, the magic flowed from its source and avoided obstacles as much as possible. In a plant maze like this, she had to concentrate a lot more, since the walls weren’t completely closed, what allowed the magic to pass through.

“I still can feel you, Princess,” she said. “The closer I get the easier it is to feel you…”

More than just help her to locate exactly where some magic is, her wings also could feel magic from around her. And she had just felt it. Looking back, she noticed she was being followed. Golden Breeze tried to run at first, but quickly noticed her follower could easily follow her.

She then opened her wings and was going to fly away, just to have a feeling from somewhere that it wouldn’t be a good idea. She only had one option then. She turned to the pony following her.

“Excuse but, could you leave me alone? I need to find Princess Celestia…”

Her eyes then widened as the plant-pony threw five vines full of spikes at her. She just flapped her wings, making the vines hit an invisible wall and fall to the ground, slowly retracting back to their owner.

“Why are you attacking me?” she asked, one of her hooves crossed over her chest.

As answer, the creature just attacked once again, trying for a punch this time. The golden pegasus flapped her wings twice this time, forcing the monster to fly against the wall behind it with a strong gust of wind. With a third flap, her wings formed glowing golden shards, which sliced both the monster and the wall behind it, reducing both to an amount of twigs and leaves. The wall then, regrew, the plant pony don’t.

“I-I’m sorry… But you gave me no choice…”

She then turned herself to the task at hand: find Princess Celestia.

****

Blaze, though, hasn’t wasted any time. As soon as he felt movement behind him, he turned and punched as strong as he could. The plan-pony there was sent flying against the wall, while the strong earth pony was already rushing against him.

The creature lunched its vines towards the rusty-red pony, which avoided easy enough. Blaze focused all his strength in his hoof and hit the creature squarely in the chest, forcing it against the wall behind and then through it, where something else hit the body and a few seconds later, both the wall and the plant-pony were blasted into a pile of leaves and splints. However, Blaze felt a bit of satisfaction cross his face: he was now face-to-face with Lightning Dash.

They both parted from the shock, grinning. “Now that we’re alone, no holding back, okay?” Lightning Dash said.

“The Princess is watching us…”

“I don’t care for them to watch… I just don’t want to hurt them…”

“They’re stronger than they seem.”

“Yeah… right…” before the plant wall could close in front of them, Lightning Dash lunched himself against Blaze, faster than he could follow. Instead of connecting a hit straight away, the pegasus stopped behind him and kicked on the earth pony’s side, throwing him against the wall.

However, Blaze was no lazy pony. Besides being surprised at first for his opponent true speed, he quickly judged Lightning Dash’s actions and blocked his kick with all his strength, placing a forehoof where it would connect. They parted once again, just for Blaze to stomp strongly straight in the ground, creating a wall of flames which went towards Lightning Dash. The pegasus flapped his wings back and placed his hooves over the plant wall behind, shooting himself forwards and focusing his strength on the punch, electric sparks raced through his body, what made the flames pass around him harmless as he punched through them and reached Blaze’s chest.

Or at least he tried to, since the earth pony jumped backwards, placing both forehooves in the ground and then forcing himself up again to land on his four hooves after a back-roll. Both of them stood still, looking at each other, readying themselves for some tough battle ahead of them. On Lightning Dash’s right foreleg, electric sparks began to charge up, getting more and more intense each second. Blaze’s right foreleg, though, was enveloped in flames, which didn’t seem to harm him in any way.

Both of them lunched forward. Their punches would connect precisely in the middle of them! But before that, a flash of light suddenly blinded them and, as it subdued, Celestia stood between both colts, holding their attacks with her bare hooves, adorned with her day-to-day regalia, not fit for battle, but which still wasn’t even scratched.

“I guess enough is enough,” Celestia commented as they both jumped backwards. She then straightened herself before she looked at them. “You’ve surprised me quite a bit. Your power really surpasses greatly those of my standard guards,” Celestia allowed.

Right then, from different directions through the labyrinth the three mares appeared, Ice Sapphire right across a wall, Golden Breeze from their east side and Scarlet Boulder from the south side. As all of them reunited, Princess Celestia gave all them a smile and focused her magic, summoning a smaller and weaker version of her armor, basically covering her chest and some of her belly, as well as all her hooves. Her mane and tail, though, were completely free to move on their own accord in their three colors.

All the ponies were in complete awe at what they saw. The white metallic armor over Celestia’s white fur was only visible thanks to their shining and for the golden soft edges. In the center of her chest, above her heart, a stylized sun, as her cutie mark, showed the true identity of the Princess.

Celestia though, chuckled at them softly. “This, my little ponies, is the next magic you shall master,” she said. “This magic armor you will summon draws power straight from your cutie marks, hence from your heart. For you, ponies filled with determination, I know this will be easy to master. However… You’re far too powerful to join the ranks of my guards.”

“What?” Ice Sapphire asked surprised.

“But Princess…” Golden Breeze tried to argue.

“Girls… Would you please shut up and let the Princess finish?” Lightning Dash said calmly. “Nopony… or anyone else dismisses possible guards for being too powerful. They are often called to be closer to them, if for no other reason than to not have their power used against them.”

Celestia then chuckled, “Despite him being a bit too harsh with his words, Lighting Dash is right. It would be foolish of me to not keep you close if for no other reason than to keep you in check. But, as I said, your powers surpass greatly the ranks usually reserved for new recruits. You five, though, will start a new group of warriors in the name of the Princesses of Equestria.”

“A new group of warriors?” Scarlet Boulder asked, surprised.

“Not exactly a new group, but one that doesn’t exist in a real long time,” Celestia corrected herself.

“You’re bringing back the Knighthood,” Blaze was the first to understand. As the three mares looked at him astonished, Celestia just nodded softly. Lightning Dash, though, raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, my little ponies. I shall bring back a power long forgotten in Equestrian history. In well over a thousand years, you five will be the first Knights of Harmony.”

Author's Note

There are the Prologue and the First Chapter. Read each of them five times with critical eyes and hope nothing has escaped me. However, I know I'm not perfect so bring on your comments, good or bad, and I will try to improve before next chapter.

Yes, I know it was a bit too fast, but this chapter I wanted a bit of action before getting you the true history building one of my many visions of Equestria's past. Chapter Two is Truth of Harmony and will bring mostly the history of the forgotten knights. So, brace yourselves for a long history class next time!

And yes again! I plan to use the Author's Notes to give a quick preview of the next chapter! Imagine Celestia's voice narrating a bit of next chapter!

"The five young ponies had managed to past through the maze and are now stunned by the surprise. Bringing back an order of long gone knights isn't a light decision so they must know the truth behind them to make their proper choices. However, I fear for a thousand of years without battles and, somehow, I feel that this is the calm before the storm. The next chapter of Knights of Harmony is: Truth of Harmony"