Chapter 1: A Fire Is Rekindled
Deep under ground, inside a buried temple of her Unicorn ancestors, Twilight Sparkle was carefully unearthing a brittle stone tablet buried just under the destroyed remains of the marble alter. The process was painfully slow, requiring a gentle touch, and the occasional seismic tremor just added to the stress. In the end, Twilight recovered her treasure, and after wrapping it in a thick cloth for transport, she levitated it into her journey bag, along with her brushes and spades, and turned to leave. Grasping her lantern with her left fore hoof, Twilight exited the dank subterranean temple, and reached a large basket tied to a thick rope. Extinguishing her lantern, and draping her robe's thick hood over her head, Twilight tugged on the rope three times as she boarded the basket, and stood still as she was lifted through the caverns roof, via a small hole to the surface.
The Sun's harsh light blinded Twilight as she crawled out of the hole, her limbs felt like lead on the desert surface, seeking deep into the shifting sands, and the sudden blast of dry heat nearly caused her to pass out. Fortunately for Twilight, she was not alone, her bodyguard, Glimmering Shield, caught her just as she lost balance. Unfortunately, the middle age mare was dressed in a full suit of steel armor, so when Twilight's bare face landed on Glimmering Shield's chest pate it was almost seared to the molten metal.
"Ah! Damn you, Glimmering Shield! You and your stupid armor!" Twilight bellowed, pouring water from her canteen all over her burning face, and breathing heavily as the shock of cold water caused her nerves to tingle.
"Sorry, a momentary over sight," Glimmering Shield replied, her voice rather muffled by her helmet's fixed mouth guard.
"How can you over look the fact that you are wearing a full set of armor?! Seriously, how are you not cooked in that tin can?" Twilight snapped, wobbly thrusting an accusatory hoof at Glimmering Shield.
"Listen, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you just had a bigger breakfast like I told you," Glimmering Shield retorted, while trying to maintain Twilight's terrible balance.
"I already told you, I'm watching my figure!" Twilight shouted, slapping Glimmering Shield's hooves away viciously.
"Don't give me that crap! Who the hell are you trying to impress, and when was the last time you even went on a date, huh?!" Glimmering Shield yelled back.
"That is none of your business!" Twilight said, as she tried to shove Glimmering Shield to the side; she utterly failed, but she tried.
"Just look at you," Glimmering Shield said, as she reached out with her right fore hoof, and poked at Twilight's left side, prompting Twilight to squeak sharply in surprise. "You are nothing but skin, and bones."
"You are not my mother, or my friend. You are my bodyguard, and this conversation is over!" Twilight sharply retorted, and after stumbling a few times, she side swiped Glimmering Shield, and entered their tent to get to work on the stone tablet she found.
For a moment Glimmering Shield stood still, her head turning slightly between the tent and her hooves, and after taking a deep breath, she wandered off to patrol the perimeter. Slouching on to the table inside the tent, Twilight, her stomach growling and head spinning, reluctantly set her bag aside, and proceed to make a sandwich. Once satisfied with ample nourishment, Twilight lowered her robe's hood, and cupped her face in her hooves. It has been a while since she has had a good rest, what with hounding from her superiors for result, threats of revoking her standing at the academy, and the constant dangers posed by sand serpents, Twilight was practically in the company of the walking dead. Unable to fight it any more, Twilight plopped onto her sleeping mat, and quickly drifted off into slumber.
Tossing and turning in her sleep Twilight's body perspired in a cold sweat, as visions from her past haunted her dreams, and quickened her heart rate. Over come by fear, Twilight awoke screaming in terror, her breathing was heavy, and her eyes were shedding ears that stung as they flowed out sluggishly. Following Twilight's screaming, Glimmering Shield came charging in with her horn, the only part of her body not in cased in steel, a glow in a sky blue aura, and her long sword, named Heaven's Light , unsheathed and ready for combat in her right fore hoof.
"Is everything alright?" Glimmering Shield asked, her body tense, but ready to lash at any threat, and from any angle.
"Yes, just a bad dream," Twilight replied, as she reigned in her breathing, and wiped the painful tears from her eyes. "Anyway, I'm fine now, and don't wish to keep you. Please, leave me to my work."
"As you wish, but if you want to talk later..." Glimmering Shield said, as she sheathed her sword, and power downed her spell.
"That won't be necessary," Twilight interrupted, donning her hood once more, and laying the stone tablet on the table. "Leave."
Without another word, Glimmering Shield did as she was told, and exited back out to the embrace of the desert's midday Sun. Alone again, Twilight tried to forget about her past by immersing herself into her work, and before long she had translated a third of the tablet's ancient hieroglyphs. According to what she could make out this desert was once a lush valley, and the temple was not always in that cavern. Twilight hypothesized that whatever killed the Unicorns of this region most likely played a part in the drastic change of climate, and terrain. Of course, until she deciphered the rest of the tablet this was only a theory, but it was a plausible one.
However, no matter how hard she tried, the lore remained sealed to her, the glyphs completely undecipherable; clearly she was missing something. Frustrated to no end, Twilight stuffed the tablet back in her journey bag, and slung the bag over her shoulders before exiting the tent. Twilight didn't get far from the tent before Glimmering Shield caught sight of her, and impeded her path back to the temple.
"An what do you think you are doing?" Glimmering Shield asked, her left hoof firmly on the basket.
"My job, maybe you should try doing yours," Twilight said, her expression hard and cold.
"I try, but you see this moody little filly, maybe you know her, keeps popping up, and makes it all but impossible," Glimmering Shield retorted sarcastically.
"Listen you, this is my life's work. My life's work! I've come too far, and dealt with too much crap just to halt because of my lack in personal well being," Twilight said, her eyes blood shot, and filled with rage.
"Ah, alright, but we go together, and there is no arguing that point," Glimmering Shield said, as she used her magic to conjure forth two strong stone golems to serve as their lifting and lowering crew.
"Fine, but don't get in my way, or worse break something with your clunky armor," Twilight replied, the matter now settled.
Boarding the basket together, they were lowered down to the underground temple, and once they touched down, Twilight reignited her lantern, and took point. Glimmering Shield was captivated by the temple's over all integrity, for despite all the cracks, and collapsed sections the structure was still quite sound; "Not bad for a two hundred year old building," she mumbled under her breath. Unclear on what she sought for exactly, Twilight thought it prudent to work from the alter, since that was where she found the tablet, and then expand her search from that point of origin. Hours ticked away like sand seeps out of one's palm, Twilight was beginning to doubt the temple had anything left to divulge, as she moved from the remains of the alter to the wall just behind it. The intricate script of her ancestors was tricky to translate to common Equestrian, but with enough tenacity anything was possible.
After three bothersome hours, Twilight had acquired that which she lacked, or more precisely, she now knew where to find it. Without warning she blasted a powerful lightning bolt at the center of the room, the concussive force shook the temple violently, and vaporized most of the floor, revealing a pit with a thin spiral, lime stone stair case leading to its base.
"Have you lost you sanity? What if the entire temple came down on our heads?" Glimmering Shield said, as she wobbled about to regain her balance; the intense vibrations from the temple shaking transmitted into her armor, and made for a rather unpleasant experience.
"Well if that were to occur, then I'm sure my bodyguard would be able to manage. Right? " Twilight retorted with a sly grin, as she began to descend the stairs. "Well? What are you waiting for? An invitation? Step lively now."
Shaking her head, Glimmering Shield yielded to her charge, and proceeded to follow Twilight into the darkness of the pit. The descent was long and hard, great care had to be taken due to the lack of any guard rail, and questionable stability of the steps themselves. With each hoof step Twilight's heart raced, her breathing became irregular and heavy, and a smile slowly, but surely, At the far end of the pit, in respect to the bottom of the stairs, was a steel platform, and on top of it was a single, Pony sized, opal shaped object. Feeling a tad light headed, her mouth drying out in anticipation as she slowly approached the platform, Twilight almost feared what awaited her, and at the same time she was ecstatic that her long search was at last over. Standing a mere five paces from the artifact, Twilight nervously raised her lantern with a levitation spell, and when its light made the object visible all color left Twilight's face, followed by two words that echoed all the way to the desert surface; "A rock!"
No words could describe how inflamed Twilight was, Glimmering Shield had to duck when the levitation field holding the lantern overloaded, and propelled it straight at her face. With a loud crash, and a sharp crack, the lantern was smashed to pieces, its light extinguished, and thus casting them into darkness. Fortunately the blackness was brief, for in her rage Twilight's magic enveloped her in a blazing cloak of fire, and illuminated the pit proper.
"A rock!" Twilight shouted again, flames erupting from her body, melting some of the thin ice around her. "Fourteen years, hundreds of close calls, and all for a rock!"
"Calm down Twilight, maybe you just mistranslated a tome, or a tablet at some point," Glimmering Shield said, as she slowly approached Twilight, but quickly backed away when Twilight turned toward her, shooting daggers from her eyes.
"You think I would make such an amateur mistake! I told you, this is my life's work!" Twilight shouted, her flame cloak lashing out in all directions, and melting even the thicker ice on the stalagmites.
"Well maybe there is more to the rock, you considered that?" Glimmering Shield retorted in hopes of appeasing to Twilight's more dominant logical side.
"Are you questioning my powers of observation now?! Who the buck do you think you are?!" Twilight screamed, the fires enshrouding her reaching a temperature in which they could evaporate the water accumulating round her hooves.
"Relax, I'm not saying that. Look, it is not the end of the world. How about we just go back up to the surface, eat, rest, and look at this again with fresh eyes? What do you say?" Glimmering Shield reasoned, but her words of wisdom merely evaporated in the fires of Twilight's rage.
"Not the end of the world? " Twilight replied, her eyes becoming less wide, and the flames cloaking her waning in intensity. However this was just the calming before the storm, for in the blink of an eye Twilight adopted a frightful scowl, and her flame cloak went from pale orange to crystal blue. "Of course it is the end of the world! You think the Canterlot Academy of Magi will accept this? No, they won't! They will assume that I have been gallivanting around like some drop out! Which means they will cut my funding, demote me, if not straight up fire me, and then drag my name through the mud until any respect I once enjoyed is gone! And that isn't even the worse they can, and all because my ancestors got the brilliant idea to protect some stupid rock!"
Consumed by her unbridled anger, Twilight sharply turned towards the rock that so offended her, and with all of her hate, she blasted it with a ferocious fire breath. The blue flames enveloped the rock, their intense heat melting its very exterior, but suddenly the flames just stopped, their entropy was completely halted on the molecular level by some great force, and just as quickly they were sucked into the rock. Dumbstruck, Twilight's flame cloak immediately dispelled, and with a strong sense of curiosity she carefully approached the partially melted rock. Ignoring Glimmering Shield's cries to back away, Twilight gingerly reached out with her left hoof, and touched the rock. The surface was remarkably cold, as well as impressively smooth, but what really caught her attention was the subtle beating rhythm emanating from the rock's core.
"What are you?" Twilight softly spoke to the rock, as she ran her hoof around the rock in a near perfect circle.
"I am more than a simple rock," the rock replied.
"What the..." Twilight blurted out, as she came to find that she could not part her hoof from the rock. Breathing erratically, she desperately tried to free her hoof with her magic, but all her spells merely glanced off as if deflected by some invisible field. "Please, let me go. I didn't really mean to call you stupid, or set you on fire."
"Hang on Twilight, I'll get you out," Glimmering Shield said, as she drew out Heaven's Light. "Ancient or contemporary, my sword cuts through all without distinction."
Twilight knew Glimmering Shield wasn't just boasting, Heaven's Light was one of the Five Legendary Elemental Swords of Equestria, its power knows no equal, and its edge was one of the keenest.
"You will not interfere," the rock spoke out loud, as a wall of fire manifested between Twilight and Glimmering Shield.
"This won't stop me!" Glimmering Shield said, as she charged at the flaming wall with her blade raised at an angle for a cross slash.
"Wait! Stop!" Twilight yelled.
"What? Why?" Glimmering Shield replied stopping centimeters from the wall.
"I don't think it wants to kill us. On the contrary it has done the opposite," Twilight said, calm enough to think straight.
"Clever girl," the rock mused with a brief chuckle. "You are correct, I do not seek blood. I merely wish to convey something to you, and only you, Twilight Sparkle."
"How do you know my name?" Twilight asked, put off by the rock's knowledge.
"I know only what I am meant to know," the rock retorted, bewildering Twilight even more. "Do not worry, all will be clear soon. Twilight Sparkle, you are found worthy. Hence forth, and forever more, you shall bear the title and powers of the Equestrian Knight of Fire. Use them well."
"Wait, what?!" Twilight shouted, her eyes wide, and mouth dropping down.
The rock spoke no more, instead it shattered outward, revealing a crimson red opal with molten fluid core. Twilight's hoof was still bound to the artifact's surface, a warming sensation ran up the length of her left fore leg, and snaked its way up to her horn. As the alien force mingled with her own magical and natural auras, Twilight felt something changing inside her, her mind was bombarded with graven images, and even her magical attunement seemed to alter. Helpless, Glimmering Shield watched as the energies contained within the opal transferred into Twilight, and when the process was complete, and the wall came down, she galloped to Twilight's side. The transfer was quite exhausting for Twilight, but apart from being a little winded, Glimmering Shield could see no permanent damage.
"Wow, that was something. Wouldn't you say Glimmering Shield?" Twilight said, as she slumped on Glimmering's shoulders, too tired to stand.
"That was reckless Twilight," Glimmering Shield scolded, as she gently cradled the barely conscious mare in her fore hooves. "At least you are okay. Come on, let's get you out of here."
"I'm afraid not," spoke a blood curdling voice from the bottom of the stairs. "The only pony leaving with her is me. Now hand her over, and I promise you a warrior's death. Defy me, and you will know pain not seen in two hundred years. Personally though, I hope you do oppose me, it has been so long since I bathed in blood. In any event, the choice is yours. What say you?"
"Damn it Twilight, when did you become so popular," Glimmering Shield said, as she lowered Twilight, and drew her sword towards her adversary. "Here is my answer!"