Chapter 8 - Revolution

From what Twilight could see from the doorway, the interior of the meeting room, was not exactly inviting, in any sense of the word. She felt high-strung, being exceedingly overencumbered. The future of Equestria sat upon her shoulders, bringing down a crippling weight. She felt that weight, as she took the first, anxious step into the dim lights of the torches, that barely burned on the walls. The walls themselves, were made of a damp looking cobblestones. The floor, was actually a solid wooden floor, surprisingly lacking of holes. The ceiling, although vaulted, did have a few small holes, where the night sky was completely visible from the interior of the room. There were no windows in any of the four walls of the rectangular room.

In the center of the room, rested a giant, elliptical wooden table. Positioned at even intervals around the table, were ten chairs. Cadence, sat at one end, opposite an empty seat. To her right, was Twilight's brother, Shining Armor. To her left, was Discord, followed by Fluttershy, and another empty seat. To the right of Cadence's opposing empty chair, sat Applejack, Rarity sitting on the left. In between Rarity, and Fluttershy, resided another unoccupied chair. To the right of Applejack, sat Pinkie Pie, who positioned the final empty chair, between her, and Shining Armor.

Twilight gazed around the room, quickly noticing all of the accentuating eyes that had locked onto her. Nervousness resonated through her body, as she slowly made her way through the suddenly imposing room, to the chair that resided opposite of Cadence. The room stayed silent, as she sat in the cushioned seat.

Rainbow Dash also found a seat between Fluttershy, and Rarity. Twilight could see that, for whatever reason, Rainbow was struggling to stay contempt. It only served as a minor distraction from the mind numbing lack of sound.

Everypony in the room still had their eyes locked on Twilight. The sudden realization hit her like a wall of bricks, freezing her body, while sending a capricious chill down her spine. It seemed like all of her friends searched her eyes with either worry, or confusion. She contemplated saying something, anything to end the terminal silence. She relaxed slightly as Discord cleared his throat.

"Twilight," Discord began. His usual mischievously, bubbly personality, was nonexistent in his voice. Being replaced, by a rather unnervingly solem doppelganger, "how are you feeling?"

Twilight searched his face quickly, for any signs of trickery. To her surprise, she found none. "I'm...okay."

"Okay is not good enough. I need to know for sure, if you feel one hundred percent, perfectly normal."

Twilight wasn't sure why Discord would care so much about how she felt, but only moments after he was done speaking, she could feel slight painful throbs coming from the base of her horn. "Actually, I...I have a slight head ache."

Without missing a beat, Discord responded. "Where?"

Before Twilight could respond, the headache doubled in strength, and brought about a slight dose of vertigo. Twilight, put her hooves down on the table, to steady herself. "R-right at the base of my h-horn."

"Well, that supports my theory. I have a strong feeling I know what's going on."

Applejack stood from her seat. "Quit beatin' around the bush darnit! Jus' tell us what ya think is wrong with her. We've been tryin' ya figure it out for hours."

Discord shot Applejack a slight glare, causing her to sit back down, and leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard, with his eagle talons. "That's just it. Nothing is wrong now. She's actually recovering. What I THINK happened, is a magical seizure. It's extremely rare. However, it does not yield the same outcome as a normal seizure. It only happens, when a unicorn, or in this case, an alicorn's magic, diagrees with, and fights the users body. Like I said, it's extremely rare. The magic unicorns are born with, is constructed to...fit their body, for lack of a better term. It can also happen when a unicorn or alicorn is forced to absorb extra magic that is not used to their body, or their magical signature.

I believe the cause of this was Solar's magic, being thrust upon your body. Tell me, Twilight. Did it hurt when you absorbed Solar's magic?"

Twilight was awestruck. In all her years of study, she had never heard of anything called a 'magical seizure.' It took a moment for Twilight to realize that she was sitting motionless, mouth agape. "Yea...yes, it hurt a lot. I passed out from the pain."

"That only helps my theory more." Discord quickly continued. "It hurt, because your body was forced to quickly make room, and adjustments for the extra magic."

Cadence was the next to speak. "Well then, why didn't that happen when she absorbed all of our magic, before she fought Tirek?"

"It's difficult to explain, but she didn't have any problems during that period, because she knew she was going to receive the extra magic. Her body most likely subconsciously prepared itself for the magic, and made room."

"That's not true. I still had problems controlling it, and I did have some side effects." Twilight retorted.

"Twilight," Discord said flatly, "you received the power of three alicorns. I would expect anypony to have problems absorbing that much raw magic.

"Oh. So...because Solar's magic was literally thrust upon me, without my prior knowledge, my body wasn't prepared?"

"Exactly. All of the problems you've been having with magic, have been brought about by the sudden magical war going on inside of you. Both Solar's, and your magic, are literally fighting inside of you for dominance, and control. Did you notice anything weird happen with your magic, in the moments before you blacked out in Canterlot?"

"As I was lying on the floor, I...I noticed my purple magical aura running out of my mouth as I was...screaming. I closed my mouth to keep it in."

"There is literally no doubt in my mind, that this is exactly what caused your seizure. From what I heard, and saw, during your seizure, your horn began to glow with the color of Solar's magical aura. I also saw, that your own purple aura, began to overtake his aura. It raised my suspicions, when your seizure stopped, as soon as your magic, completely absorbed his. If this is any indication, I believe his magic has made the adjustment to your body."

"Does that mean that, that seizure was all that needed to happen?" Rainbow Dash asked from the side of the table.

"As far as I know. Twilight did say she was still having pain in her head, and as much as I'd like to write it off as a few, minor remaining magical adjustments, we can't be sure. Twilight, I highly recommend that you do not use magic, until these headaches are stopped for at least three days."

"Okay, I should be able to manage that. Are we sure that's what happened?"

"I have no doubt." Discord said, reassuring Twilight.

A visual moment of relief passed over the room. It lasted only a moment, before Cadence brought everyone's attention to the elephant in the room.

"That's wonderful, but, that's not the only reason we are meeting." Cadence said, standing up off of her chair. "We all know what needs done. We need to make a plan of action. We can't just sit around, and let Celestia ruin any chance of retribution."

"What can we do?" Rarity began. "We have very little support from the public, and we're stuck inside this forest. We have nowhere to go!"

"The country is by our side, but they have no way to support us, or join our cause. If we stay cooped up in this forest too long, nopony will support us." Twilight said, resting against the back of her chair.

"We can't go anywhere. The forest is surrounded by Celestia's soldiers." Discord stated, reminding everyone of their current situation.

"Look, it's not like we can go anywhere," Rainbow added from her seat, "but it's not like we can't get passed them."

"That's the one thing I was afraid of." Cadence said, standing again, and walking around the right side of the table.

"Its not like we have any way of avoiding it."Shining stated. It had been the first time he had spoken throughout the few minutes they had been there so far. "Celestial isn't going to just give up anything. As much as I hate to say it, we have a war starting, but how it starts, is in our hooves."

"He's right." Applejack added. "If we act first, we can gain the upper hoof. It might not be the favorite option, but we need to figure out where to go. We can't jus' hold up in this forest, and expect to win this war. We need allies to support us. Granted, the Crystal Army, is a good start, but Celestia is bound to be ruthless."

"That's not enough though." Rarity began. "Even if we do manage to break through their lines outside of the forest, where are we to go? We can't just wander aimlessly. We need a set goal in mind."

"Well where can we go?" Cadence asked, almost completing a full revolution around the table.

Twilight watched as Cadence passed by her empty seat. She seemed deep in thought. Twilight listened in on the discussion, as she waited for Cadence to come back around to her.

"We should go to the badlands." Rainbow started. "We would be able to set up a base, and have outposts, where we could see Celestia coming from a mile away. We could blend in to the terrain, and spread out too. If anything horrible ever happened, we could set up regrouping locations."

"Rainbow, as tactically sound as that may seem, the logistics are horrible." Shining responded. "How would we get food, water, what about supplies? How would we set up any kind of defense. Although blending in is good, we would have no soldiers to put at the 'outposts.' Even though we have the Crystal Army right at Equestria's northern border, how would they get down to us to support us? They can't just march a war path through Equestria, and going around would take at least a month. Another problem with that, is that nopony would know where we are. Any of the ponies left in the country would have no way to get to us. Celestia's borders are patrolled day and night, by thousands of soldiers."

Rainbow looked down at the table, and blushed, realizing how bad her idea had actually been.

"No no no! It might not have been the best idea, but you had some good ideas." Shining said, trying to console her.

It helped only slightly, but did remove the bright blush from her cheeks. Shining visibly relaxed.

Twilight checked to see where Cadence was. She wanted to know what Cadence was so focused on. Scanning the room, Twilight found that Cadence was nowhere to be seen. A sudden realization caused Twilight to look behind her, only for her eyes to lock onto a pink, fluffy, trudging alicorn behind her. Before Cadence could get too far away, Twilight attempted to get her attention. "Hey, Cadence."

Cadence stopped mid stride, quickly raising her face, searching the room with her eyes. Twilight, waved her hoof, realizing that Cadence most likely wouldn't see her behind her. It worked, as Cadence quickly found Twilight. She turned swiftly, and stepped over towards her.

"Sorry, Twilight. I was really focused there for a moment."

"That's just what I wanted to ask you about. What are you so focused on?"

Cadence sighed, allowing a scowl to creep onto her face. "I'm worried about the Crystal Ponies."

"Why would you need to be worried?" Twilight asked, clearly seeing the seriousness in Cadence's expression.

"I put my Secretary of Defense in charge of the Crystal Empire in our absence. Before we left, I put the entire strength of the Crystal Army at our border with Equestria. I warned them all about going to Equestria. Some of them were hesitant about listening to me, and chose to find out for themselves. They never returned. Even if they were only leaving for a day, they didn't come back. I know that was only a few days ago, but I haven't heard anything from my couriers. Twilight, the Crystal Ponies are like my children. It makes me sick to think of what might have become of them."

"Wow Cadence, that's...that's terrible. I can see why you're worried. I'm sure they'll be fine."

A slight smile, was the only product of Twilight's reassurance. "Thanks, Twilight, but, I'm still going to worry, no matter what anypony says."

Twilight turned back to the table. Her eyes caught a certain rainbow named mare, watching her. Rainbow quickly averted her gaze, finding the walls much more interesting.

Twilight quickly turned back to Cadence, who was beginning to slowly walk away. "Cadence, wait. I need to ask you one more thing." Twilight called.

"Hmm? What is it?"

Twilight dropped her voice to a whisper. "What's up with Rainbow Dash? She's been acting weird, and I keep catching her staring at me."

Cadence quickly looked across the table to Rainbow, and smirked. "If you ask her this, she'll deny it, but when you had your 'magical seizure,' she freaked out. She was panicking, like the world was ending. She really cares about you. All your friends do. I don't blame her for being worried."

Twilight slumped back in her chair. That must have been the reason Rainbow had been acting weird earlier. "Also, how were you able to find out about what was happening here?"

Cadence's smile grew in reaction. "What? You don't think I have spies in Equestria? I have my connections."

"Well then, why didn't you answer any of the letters we sent you?"

"Any letter that I would have sent, would have been stopped at the border. Celestia wrote to me as well. What she didn't count on, was that I knew the truth, and was already planning against her. How do you think Luna and Rainbow Dash escaped?"

"Wait. Rainbow Dash escaped? Why didn't Solar?"

"Shining said he couldn't find either of you. It's sad, but, he did what he could. I'm sorry, Twilight."

Author's Note

I am terribly sorry for anyone, who suffers, or know someone who suffers from seizures. I hope I did not offend you. Seizures are nothing to joke about.

On a brighter note, here it is folks.

The plot thickens.

~BattleMaestro~