Stepping off Celestia's royal flying carriage, Twilight and her friends found themselves in what appeared to be a reserved area of the city, little to no one was in sight, apart from the occasional important looking person, walking out of similar looking areas.
As they all took a couple steps forward, they were immediately flanked by several griffon soldiers, Twilight attempted to ask them what was going on, but was cut off by the one standing closest to her.

"Twilight Sparkle and friends I assume, we have orders to take you straight to the king, no stops on the way." The apparent commander said.

Rainbow, as rowdy as ever, wasn't so eager to comply. "What the hay is this about? We haven't done anything wrong, heck, we just bucking got here!"

The commander looked confused for a moment, before realizing what she was implying, and chuckling to himself.

"You misunderstand miss, we are not escorting you because you are in trouble, far from it in fact, we're here to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to you lot on the way there." The commanding officer explained, a small sigh of relief coming from the group of girls.

All except Fluttershy. "W-what do you mean 'make sure nothing unfortunate happens?' do you mean l-like, getting lost or-"

"More like getting kidnapped, mugged or worse." He interrupted, causing them all to recoil in horror.

"Isn't this the capitol?" Rarity asked. "Surely the chances of something like that happening here cannot be that high?"

The commander tilted his head in confusion. "This is a large city miss, with a lot of griffons and whatnot living in it, some are decent, hard working folk, and some are nothing more than scum. I'm not sure how things work in Equestria, but here, it pays to keep one's self aware of that fact at all times, especially near the lower area's of the city. Now come along please, we are keeping the king waiting." With that, he turned to his soldiers, signalling them to move out.

The group of girls looked uneasily at one another, before getting swept up in the moving troop.

Before the girls knew it, they found themselves walking into the halls of the kings home, the guards not allowing any time to look around the city as they quickly made their way to the castle.
The inside of the castle wasn't as flashy as Canterlot castle, but still grand in design, with imposing looking walls and architecture, it was clearly fashioned for defense, rather than atheistic.
Being pushed on by the guards, they walked through a series of corridors lined with guards, all standing at full attention, even after they had passed them, the difference between these griffons and the Equestrian military was becoming more apparent with each passing moment.

"They may be a bit pushy, but ya have to admit they take their job seriously." Applejack muttered, the group silently agreeing.

A few corridors later, they came up to an impressive looking door, while not beautiful, it looked sturdy enough to hold against a siege by itself.
Knocking on the door, the commander spoke.

"Ambassador Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rainbow Rash-"

"DASH!" Rainbow forcefully corrected, the soldiers grinning at their commanders mistake, which earned them all an hour on latrine duty.

Clearing his throat, the commander continued. "Rainbow Dash are here to see the king, open the doors!"

After a few moments of awkward silence, the doors slowly slid open, two griffons standing at each door, struggling to pull them open.
Twilight immediately knew that everything they had seen on the way here was for show, after all, why bother closing the doors if they were that taxing to open each time.

When the doors were finally fully opened, the commander saluted to Twilight and motioned at the group to head inside, before taking his troops to leave.

With nothing left to do, the girls entered the room.

The room in question was obviously not the throne room, for it housed a massive table that took up most of the available space, chairs littered down its sides, each with a small carving on its back, from what they could make out, this was some sort of meeting room.
The room had no windows, but rather a large skylight that spanned most of the ceiling, from down here, it was impossible to discern whether it opened or not.

So distracted were they, that they almost missed the rather large griffon sitting at the far end of the table.

"Well, it took you lot long enough to get here, lets not drag this out with unnecessary gawking, I made this room unremarkable to avoid such things." Spoke Ares, King of the North.

Ares very presence seemed to take up the whole room suddenly, which was not surprising given just how much larger he was than any of the previous griffons they had encountered. His feathers were a brilliant white, and his lion half a steely gray, he motioned for the group of girls to take the seats nearest to him, they felt compelled to obey.

After each element had taken a seat, he gave them each a smile, it reminded them of a grandfather smiling at his grand kids.

"I welcome you all to Griffonstone, I hope your flight here was not too tiring, for we have a few things to go over before I can set you all loose on my city." He said casually, catching the girls, mainly Twilight, off guard.

"King Ares? I'm not sure I quite follow, I was lead to believe we were sent here to discuss-" Ares silenced Twilight with a wave of his claw.

"I will make one thing clear to you all, while it is true, I have asked for you girls, personally, to be the Equestrian ambassadors for this years Spring of Rebirth, I expect we will be having little to no discussion on such matters. You are all young, naive girls, and while I do not doubt that you may have sound advice or judgement on certain things, I do not believe for a second any of you are truly prepared for such important talks." Ares explained.

The girls sat in silence, each trying to process what they had just been told, Twilight was the first to speak up.
"Ares, if I may ask, if you do not attend to speak on matters of diplomacy with us, they why have you called us here?"

Ares smiled at her. "That's good, you know how to ask the right questions, there may be hope for you. To answer you, I have requested the elements for a few reasons, one is the renewal of the spell woven into the Grand Arena. The other, is your help in dealing with a particular being you are all quite familiar with, Nova."

Each of the girls began to pale rapidly, Fluttershy almost looked ready to faint, however, before they could all freak out, Ares continued.

"Do not be alarmed, I am not foolish enough to place any of you in harms way, in regards to dealing with Nova, I had hoped to gain your insight and advice on what to do in regards to this unknown in my kingdom. Rest assured, I am not asking you to go anywhere near him."

The girls looked relieved, but only slightly, Rarity took the lead this time. "My king, we will answer any questions you may have in regards to that... thing, Nova, but I believe I speak for my friends when I say we doubt we could give any real advice."

Ares waved his claw dismissively. "I am not asking you to do this right now, you have all just arrived in my city from a long trip and are surely tired, you will be provided board here in the castle, and will be allowed to explore the upper parts of the city." Ares motioned behind him, and a previously unseen griffon servant stepped forward, opening a small box he held.

Inside the box were several necklaces, each with the symbol of a griffon crossing his front claws, the servant moved to each of the girls, handing them each a necklace.

"This will mark you as my guests while you stay in the city, you will not have to pay for anything, and anyone of noble standing will treat you with the respect you deserve, do not lose these." he said, putting large emphasis on the last part.

Slowly, the group put the amulets over their heads, the chain feeling cold and cumbersome on their necks.

"Good, now the guards outside the doors will show you to your quarters for your stay here, that is unless you wish to stay in one of the hotels or inns in the city. Speaking of, for the rest of today, I give you permission to explore the upper levels of Griffonstone, but I ask that you do not wander down to the lower parts in the time being."

With that out of the way, Ares excused himself and left the room, leaving the girls to themselves.

"Well, that was sure one doosey of a welcoming, wasn't it?" Pinkie exclaimed, playing with her new bling.

After having been shown to their accommodations for the duration of their stay, the girls, after getting lost a few times, made their way out of the grand fortress and looked out at the city below.

The first thing that caught their attention was just how high up they all were compared to the rest of the city. The palace was first built onto of a massive hill that dominated the rest of the landscape, and the city had been built out around it over time, just below the palace sat the upper levels, as Ares called it, and was clearly where those of high standing and class stayed.

The streets were made of a white marble, and the buildings ranged from ancient, beautiful wooden buildings to more modern looking houses and buildings. Griffons dominated the area, filling the air and streets below, with only the odd pony or other creatures occasionally popping into view, as one would expect from the capitol of the Griffon Empire.

It just dawned on each element just how far from home, they really were at the moment, however, their apprehension was quickly overrun by excitement and curiosity.

"I've never seen so many new ponies!" Pinkie exclaimed, jumping up and down on the spot with excitement.

"A-actually, I don't think it's right to call them ponies, Pinkie." Fluttershy timidly corrected, getting a stern nod from Rainbow.

"Yeah, try not to call any of the griffons ponies, when I first became friends with Gilda, she got really mad at that, said it was an insult not to recognize them as their own species." She said, suddenly looking worried. "Oh geez, we might run into Gilda while were here, she's no lower class citizen, that's for sure."

Rarity scoffed "Are you implying that brute is a noble, surely you just Rainbow."

"Well, maybe not noble, but she has to come from money at least, I mean, she came from all the way here to Cloudsdale for school, I doubt her parents could have afforded something like that unless they were well off." She replied, all her friends looking confused.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" Rainbow asked. "Do I have something in my wings?"

"I guess we're all just a little surprised to hear such insightful things coming from you." Twilight said with a smirk, earning a giggle from all her friends.

Everyone except Rainbow of course. "Arg, whatever, I'm out of here." She announced, quickly taking off before anyone could object or apologies. Applejack rolled here eyes. "Girl can't take a joke unless shes the one tellin' it, I'll go track her down, see ya'll later." She said, quickly trotting off after her speedy friend.

Twilight shook her head, slightly upset she had been the cause for her friends having to already split up, but got over it quickly.
"Well, I for one, want to go see this arena Ares mentioned, I want to know more about the spell that was cast on it before actually doing anything to it." She decided.

"Hmm, I think I'll go and get myself acquainted with the citizens of this fine city, you never know, I might be able to drum myself up some business contacts while I'm here, tootles darlings." Rarity said, beginning to walk off.

Fluttershy meekly started to follow her. "Um, I'll go with Rarity, I don't really want to go anywhere near that arena place, see you later..." She trailed off.

Twilight sighed, she had hoped to explore the city with all of her friends together, she turned to Pinkie. "I don't suppose you want to do something else as well?" She asked.

She was surprised when Pinkie shook her head. "Of course I want to go to the arena Twilight, that's where the most interesting people will be!" She explained, and already began hopping off towards it.

Twilight smiled, happy to have one of her friends stick with her, before becoming confused and charging off after Pinkie.

"Wait, we don't even know where it it!" She said, trying to catch up with the hyperactive pony.

"Wowie, look at all them Twilight, there's griffons, Minotaurs, Diamond Dogs, Ponies and ARE THOSE DRAGONS!?" Pinkie said to Twilight, almost hyperventilating from excitement.
As it turned out, the arena hadn't been that hard to find, as it took up the second half of the upper city, although it was usually closed off for most of the year, with the Spring of Rebirth festival fast approaching, it had been open up for fighters to sign up and find accommodations.

"No kidding Pinkie, I've never seen so many different species in one area before, I hope there's nothing to worry about." Twilight said, frowning at the large crowd.

Pinkie tilted her head slightly to the side. "What do you mean Twi?"

"Well, All these poni- *Ahem* different beings are all here to fight, they might already be looking for one." She began to explain. "I mean, they must love hurting others if they willfully want to participate in a fight like this."

As if on cue, the sounds of approaching feet caused Twilight to spin around, only to get a snout full of robe.

"My, such a naive outlook on things you have, little ambassador, seems Ares may have had a point after all." Accused the female Diamond Dog. Twilight looked up, only to gasp in surprise when she saw the same necklace they had been given earlier.

After a few days of travel, the group of three unlikely companions were finally approaching Griffonstone.

"So, we shall arrive by tomorrow you say?" Trixie asks, looking at her map.

However, Heru was too distracted by the nearby hillside to answer, and Nova was asleep on top of the roof once again.
He was so distracted by the hillside, he didn't have time to notice Trixie rolling up the map and bonking him on the head with it, causing him to scream in surprise.

"There, now that Trixie has your attention, you can politely answer me." She said looking smug.

Heru was less than happy, his temper flared. "Be quite damn you!, I thought I saw-" He was cut off by an arrow piercing Trixie's performance hat.

In an instant, a small assorted group of bandits rushed from over the hill, Heru quickly pulled a short bow he had picked up from a small trading post a few days back, nocked an arrow and returned fire, the distance squeal from over the hill told him he had found his target.
As the rest of the bandits closed in, and with Trixie still slightly dazed with her near death experience, Heru started to pull his spear out.

"Nova, get up! we-"

A golden shield suddenly surrounded them and the carriage, Nova poked his head out from the roof.

"Yeah, yeah, I've got us, keep your feathers in a bunch Heru, anyone hurt?" Nova asked, Pulling Trixie's hat free and putting it on himself.

Heru looked over at Trixie, who had finally snapped out of her shock at the theft of her hat, thankfully, she was unhurt.

"No, we're all fine down here, so, how are we gonna deal with these cretins?" Trixie asked.

"Nova, you wanna round them up so we can hand them over to the authorities? I can give you a claw if you need." Heru said, looking ready to fight.

"Actually, I think we should just go, I can hold the shield up as we-"

"WHAT?!" Heru shouted, looking rather pissed. "If we just leave these bastards, they will just attack some other poor sods, you have all this power, and you just want to leave, why?!"

Nova's face turned unreadable. "Criminals don't have any business arresting anyone." He said quietly.

While the three were distracted, a unicorn bandit had cast the spell she had been charging, it rocketed forward and slammed into the shield, causing it to waver and shatter. Nova was blown off the top of the carriage, the magical feedback almost knocking him out completely, Heru braced himself spear ready to fight.

Trixie, however, was not so lucky, the bandit had assumed that she had been the one to cast the spell, so she had aimed her spell to not only break the shield, but carry on past and through to her. She was sent flying past Nova, a small trickle of blood coming from her head.

"TRIXIE!" Heru cried out. He took off after her, barely managing to catch her mid air. "Hey, are you alright, speak to me!" He said, getting a pained moan in response.

One of the bandits started to close in on the carriage. "Ha, come on lads, let's get what we need from these louts and-"

His words were drowned out by his screams as he slowly turned into a pile of ashes, the other bandits recoiled in horror, before looking around to find what had dared attacked them this time.

Nova stood on the top of the carriage once more, his face twisted into a look of feral rage, in one hand, he held a small magical flame, while the other seemed to have completely frozen over. "T-Trace, quickly, kill that thing!" One of the other brigands ordered to their unicorn mage.

That was a mistake, Nova quickly scanned the area for the one who had dared hurt his friend, as soon as his eyes found a horn, he reached out with his frozen hand.

That entire area now looked like a frozen wasteland, with every brigand caught in the spell forever frozen with an expression of horror and pain on their faces. By this point, the others had realized just how much deep shit they had found themselves in, and were already fleeing to the top of the hill, only for Nova to appear before they could get there.

"You made your choice already, now, burn in hell for the rest of your pathetic lives." Nova said, reaching out with the small flame in his hand.

The entire hill was either ash or still burning, not a single brigand remained.

It was now a rather odd sight to behold, the bottom of the hill resembled the frozen wastes of where the Crystal Empire used to be, and the hill itself looked as if a piece of Tartarus itself had been ripped out and put there instead.

Taking a moment to center himself, Nova warped himself back to the carriage, seeing that Heru had moved Trixie onto the seat, upon doing so, he felt that familiar sensation that he was getting close to his limits.

"Crap, I might have overdone it a bit there, I don't feel one hundred percent." He said, trying to shake his head clear.

"Well, while I can't say those scum didn't deserve what came to them, you really went overboard there, who knows how long it will take the land to go back to normal. Anyway, Trixie appears to be okay, just a nasty scrape to the head and shock." Heru explained, motioning to the side of her head. "Man, I know Equestria is supposed to be a land of peace and harmony, but she actually bloody past out from shock, you'd never see a griffon do that."

"Ah, ponies are herbivores, and were originally a prey species, while griffons are omnivores, and are natural predators, so honestly, it's not that big of a surprise, regardless, lets see what I can do about that scrape." Nova said.

Putting both hands over the wound, which ran from the top of her eye, and curved all the way around most of the left side of her face, Nova started to channel healing energies into it, as the wound started to close and scar, he felt pain starting to rise in his body, he instantly stopped, leaving a neat, but obvious scar behind.

"N-nope, that's all I can do at the moment, shit, what the hell is going on with me recently? I can usually do more than this." He complained, staring at his hands. Heru simply shrugged, carefully propping Trixie upright in the chair.

"You say that, but honestly, I don't know if anybody could do half the stuff you do regardless of how they were feeling, I mean except maybe the rulers of the lands." Just as he finished saying that, Trixie's eyes fluttered open.

She shot up instantly, clearly not aware the battle was already over. "W-what, where am I? B-back you fou-" Trixie began to panic, Nova put a hand on her back and gave her a quick rub. "It's fine Trixie, the problem has been dealt with, I'm sorry I let you get hurt like that, but I didn't expect a spell like that to break one of my shields." Nova apologized, quickly calming her down.

"I-it's fine, but Trixie's head hurts a bit, could you heal it a bit? I must have hit it." She asked.

"He already did, but he couldn't fully heal it, you've got a pretty big scar, here, lemme just..." Heru said, searching one of his bags, before pulling out a mirror and letting Trixie look at her new facial decal. She stared at the mirror, almost unable to recognize her own reflection.

"Maybe after some rest, I could give it another go, I'm sure I could get rid of the scar next time." Nova offered. Surprisingly, she shook her head. "No, Trixie will keep this scar, it will remind her that she needs to be more prepared in the future for such things to happen. Besides, Trixie could easily work this into her performance, she could tell the tale of how she helped fight off a large host of brigands from the far north!" She announced, seemingly having regained her composure.

"Come now, let us leave this place, Griffonstone cannot be far away!"

Luna sat with her sister in the library, several pieces of paper were scattered all over the desk.

"Are you sure this is right sister?" Celestia asked, looking over their current notes on Nova.

"Indeed, sister, for the past few nights, rather than risk entering his waking dream again, I have been observing it from the outside. While this does not allow me to know what he his doing in there, it instead let me see something much more interesting, he is wasting a large amount of his energies to maintain his ability to lucid dream." Luna explained.

"I see, so, this is yet another piece of evidence to support our theory that he is very inexperienced with the proper use of his powers, that, and the fact he's using his time while dreaming to train himself." Celestia concluded, adding the note to their collection of fact on Nova.

Rarity almost screamed when she saw Twilight and Pinkie walking towards her and Fluttershy, who was already hiding behind her, with a Diamond Dog.

"T-Twilight dear, who might your friend be?" She asked, calming down slightly when she spotted the same necklace they were given.

Before Twilight could speak, the female Diamond Dog shook one of her fingers from side to side disapprovingly. "My word, what if with others in this city, is it not common courtesy to offers your own name first, before asking another?"

Rarity, quickly catching on, moved to correct herself. "Please pardon my rudeness, but back home, I had a rather... unpleasant experience with others of your own kind. However, you are right, and that was rude of me, my name is Rarity, and this is my friend, Fluttershy." She said with a bow. Fluttershy meekly stepped forward, giving a small, but nervous wave.

As if on cue, Rainbow and Applejack appeared from one of the nearby alleyways, both looking like they had lost a fight with a bale of hay.
"I found her." Applejack said, clearly not wanting to explain just what had transpired.

After repeating almost the exact same scene as before, they quickly introduced themselves to the newcomer.

"Alright, now that we have gotten that out of the way, it is my turn, as these two already know." She motioned towards Twilight and Pinkie.
"My name is Terra, I am one of the two advisors and acting ambassador for the Western continent; Myrellia." She announced, getting a few impressed and shocked looks.

Terra stood about five foot nine, wearing a plain brown robe that covered most of her fur, which was colored dirty blonde. Her breed was something of a mix, but she looked beautiful, at least to her own kinds standards, however, what stood out most was her eyes, which were a deep, earthy brown mix with a small amount of green, It was as if you were staring at the earth itself.

"Isn't this fun girls, we got to meet two rulers today!" Pinkie said with her usual level of excitement.

"I'm not quite a ruler anymore, we have a council for that, though they still rely on us for a lot of things..." Terra corrected.

The lot of them talked and walked for a while, before Applejack asked a particular question.

"If ya don't mind me asking, but ah remember hearin' ya say you're the actin' ambassador, and that ya'll only one of the advisors, who's the other?" She asked.

"That would be Minros, if you can guess from his name, he is the previous ruler of the Minotaur nation, back from before both our nations combined into one. He has always been the one to attend the Spring of Rebirth festival as our nations ambassador, but, he was not able to attend this year, so I have taken his place in the meantime." She explained.

"Why couldn't he come?" Rainbow asked without thinking.

Terra's face became unreadable for a moment, before slipping into a neutral smile. "We are soon approaching into a festival of cheer and good times, would not do to burden your minds with unhappy thoughts." Terra said.

Sensing a moment to quickly change the subject, Rarity took the lead.

"Ah yes, the festival, pray tell Lady Terra, do you know the reason why there is such a focus on this arena, I cannot imagine why such violence is to be supported."

Terra sighed, having already explained this once, Twilight decided to answer for her instead.

"Well, as Terra explained to me and Pinkie earlier, the festival goes for about a week, during that week, everyone is allowed to fully indulge themselves through drink, food, you name it. However, with everyone getting so spirited, things can get out of hand fast, especially since the majority of the species that celebrate it are predators, it's just a part of who they are, so, Ares decided a long time ago to focus it all into one big, manageable event. He even took it one step further, and somehow got a bunch of unicorns together to weave a spell into an arena he had built to prevent anyone that fought from dying, and after a while, the fights just became bigger and bigger until the fights became the tournament it is today."

Everyone felt really tired all of a sudden, as if they were suddenly all back in school, learning about history, at least Terra looked impressed.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Okay, that's cool and all, but, is there a reward for winning at least?" Rainbow asked.

"Y-you're not thinking of entering, are you?" Fluttershy asked, worried about her friends' safety.

"Nah, I'm just curious is all." She replied, waving her hoof dismissively.

"Well, of course, there must be a reward for the brave warrior that battles their way through to the end. If the winner of the arena wishes it, they may walk away with a chest filled with gold and other riches." Terra said, before letting out a quiet chuckle. "However, if they so desire, They may choose instead to challenge the undefeated champion of the arena, King Ares himself, for the title of arena champion."

Author's Note

IT BEGINS