The Rite
By Bendelsohn
Celestia walked out onto the ritual grounds. As she had requested, the place was devoid of any life. Now all she could do was wait for Twilight Sparkle to arrive. She sat there, mentally preparing herself for what she would have to do. She had started the rite many times before, but it never got any easier. It was just so unfair! She was nearly all powerful! How could a student ever hope to defeat her? Some had come closer than others, but for the most part, every student who had accepted the rite had died by her hoofs in one way or another.
As she kicked at the ground, she felt a powerful source of magic approaching the area. She already knew who it belonged to. Twilight Sparkle entered the area with an expression as grim as any. Celestia drew a deep breath, and began the ceremony. She seemed to grimace with every word.
“Welcome Twilight, to your rite of ascension. You are here today to prove to the world that you are more able than I, and therefore more fit to rule the kingdom. You must come here knowing that you may never leave. I will not hold back my strength, and you must do the same. You must come here knowing that this ritual was practiced as long as equines have recorded their history. It is a great honor to come here and be part of our history now as it unfolds. Finally, you must come here knowing that the prize for victory is total power and near-immortality. My soul will be yours and you may use it as you please. Do you understand what it means to come here?”
Twilight stared at Celestia. “Yes, I understand.”
Celestia looked into her eyes, and saw that Twilight was shaking. She was scared! She would have to be quick about this. She would never forgive herself if this took any longer than it had too.
“Then let us begin.”
Almost as soon as she had said that, she pointed her horn towards Twilight. Instantly, a beam of fire shot out of it, hot enough to vaporize almost anything it touched. She felt something die inside of her as she watched the spot where Twilight once was instantly turn to ash.
As the smoke cleared, Celestia approached Twilight’s ashes. She leaned over them to pay her final respects. As she moved, she realized something was wrong. The ashes she was standing over emitted no magical energy at all. They could not possibly be Twilight’s! Then that would mean-
Something slammed into Celestia from the right. She flipped onto her side and turned to see what had happened.
Twilight was panting as she revealed her self from the shadow she was hiding in. Her hair was singed, and it appeared that she had narrowly teleported out of the way of the inferno. She shook her head to reorient herself, and then vanished into thin air.
Celestia looked at the massive boulder that had been tossed at her, and realized this fight would not go the way she was hoping it would. She searched the area, now fully alert. She was not going to make the same mistake twice. She searched the area for any magical sources that would indicate Twilight had reappeared. It wasn’t long before it did. Twilight sparked into existence in a secluded area next to a stair case. She launched a bolt of magic at Celestia, hoping to catch her off guard again.
Celestia created a magic shield around herself, which the bolt bounced harmlessly off of. She turned to Twilight who was then cornered.
“I’m impressed, Twilight. You seem as powerful as ever. I’m very proud that you were my student. I’m so sorry it has to end like this.”
Twilight did not respond, but only concentrated as Celestia went on.
“You know it causes me great pain every time I have to go through this. I’ve been on these grounds more times than even I can remember. Yet you are something I haven’t seen in a long time. Very few of my students even make it this long. You should be very proud of yourself.”
Celestia had walked closer to twilight. Although Twilight was probably baffled by why Celestia had taken so long to talk to her, Celestia felt she had good reason for doing it. She wanted to see what Twilight would do next. She saw how twilight was concentrating, and noted how she was obviously using her time to prepare a difficult spell. Now she only needed to know which one.
Twilight finally released her concentration and began her plan. She vanished once more, Celestia felt her presence again only a half second later. Twilight appeared just behind Celestia on her back hoofs. The reason she had taken so much time was immediately apparent. Twilight had conjured a sword from magical energy, and was going for a deadly blow to Celestia’s back. Unfortunately for her, Celestia would no longer fall for her teleportation. Before she could give any momentum to her blade, Celestia’s legs shot out at a blinding speed. They smashed into Twilight’s exposed midsection, with an audible cracking noise. Twilight was blasted backwards several meters.
Celestia glared at Twilight. Her attack had been disappointing, and poorly executed as well. Twilight seemed only then to realize her mistakes. She could have attacked from the side, or above, for a much more effective attack. Twilight cursed in both frustration and pain as she began a minor healing spell on her broken rib.
Celestia had hoped that the buck would go right to her skull, but that had clearly not been the case. She knew she had to stop waiting around at some point. It was her turn to take the offensive. She summoned her own blade, which was significantly larger and more dangerous than Twilight’s. She approached her and finally assumed a dueling stance.
Twilight did not meet the challenge, but simply surrounded herself with a magical field. She then telekineticly picked picked up her sword, but backed away from Celestia.
Celestia did not wait for Twilight to seem ready. She charged at her with a flurry of deadly blows, but they were all somehow avoided. It seemed that Twilight’s field was making her dramatically faster, almost to the point where she was hard to see at times.
By now, Celestia was angry. She just wanted to kill Twilight and be done with this damned ritual. She began to feel fatigued as she swung ever faster at Twilight. Suddenly, Celestia realized she had just figured out how to win.
Although Twilight’s magical power was vast, it was certainly not infinite, or even close to Celestia’s for that matter. Based on how much Celestia had already expended, she realized that twilight must be near exhaustion. She could see the magic field around her beginning to falter. Reinvigorated by her epiphany, Celestia’s attacks became more and more brutal.
Celestia finally got the break she was looking for. Twilight’s dodge was too slow, and Celestia’s sword embedded itself in Twilight’s shoulder. Twilight screamed as a hoof sweep quickly knocked her off her feet.
“You are defeated, Twilight.” Said Celestia. “If you have last words, say them now. I will make sure they are remembered.”
Twilight gave the same smirk she had before. Celestia leaned over her to hear her response. Had Twilight not been in immense pain, she would have laughed.
Twilight said weakly “Everything went according to plan.”
Suddenly, Twilight’s horn glowed red. Celestia tried to pull back, but was too slow to avoid what was coming. There was a bright flash, and Celestia was flung backward. When her vision cleared, Celestia tried to get back on her hoofs. This once easy task now, for some reason, seemed incredibly difficult. She felt... weak.
Twilight stood over her, looking more powerful than ever. The wound on her shoulder was gone and she practically radiated magical energy. There was something wrong about it though. It was familiar, yet the magic she felt didn’t belong to Twilight. The magic coming from Twilight belonged to herself. Celestia searched her own power and found that what little of it was left matched Twilight’s magical signature.
Celestia could only watch, completely defenseless, as Twilight moved her sword over Celestia.
“It’s my turn to ask you- any last words Princess?”
Celestia thought for a moment.
“Yes Twilight. Thank you.”
Before Twilight struck the final blow, she paused for a moment. She didn’t like what she was about to do, but she had come much too far to turn back. She looked away from what she was about to do. She simply couldn’t watch.
The blade fell, and with it, did the old kingdom and way of life. The rule of Twilight Sparkle had begun, and only time would tell for how long.
Before the rite (prequel)
Before the Rite
By Bendelsohn
451 DE (Discordian Era)
Discord sat on his throne in total ennui. He considered going to a city to try and make the lives of ponies a bit more chaotic than usual, but the idea did not appeal to him. He had simply been ruling for so long, he had exhausted all of his old tricks, and they no longer entertained him. He tapped his fingers on his armrests and wondered if there was anything left to ruling this place.
The answer swiftly revealed itself in the form of the sound of battle outside his throne room. Blood flowing under the door was a precursor to the same door being blasted open by two stallions. They both entered the room, followed by at least 50 more ponies of various races. One of them, who appeared to be the leader, approached him.
“Discord, as you can imagine, we’ve grown rather tired of your tyranny. You sit in here while your guards, whom we’ve now slaughtered, oppress us and cause chaos in the streets! We are tired of public execution for no better reasons than for your entertainment! We are sick of living without any kind of stability or safety! Are you prepared to step down, or are we going to have to force you?”
A smile cracked across Discord’s face. He began to laugh. His laughter was slow at first, but within moments, he had nearly fallen out of his throne. One of the ponies screamed in anger at this. He galloped at Discord with his sword in tow, but he found it bounced off of an invisible shield.
“No! No wait! Let me finish!” Discord cackled. Eventually, he stopped laughing, but a wide grin remained stretched across his face. “Well, I must say, that was quite a heroic speech. How long did that take you to write?”
“About 15 minutes.” One of the ponies beside the leader gave him a light kick.
“Really? I’m surprised. That’s quite a while for something so pathetic. I can’t say it wasn’t worth it though, that speech was the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.” Discord snapped his fingers and the doors slammed shut. “Anyways, what do you ponies have that you think is strong enough to take me down? Come on, show me, I’m dying to see.”
As Discord finished, the leader pony signaled to the others. A flurry of ponies, and projectile weapons all flew at Discord. All of them clashed with the same invisible barrier from before. Anything that touched it paused momentarily, then exploded backwards. Discord was still smiling, but was shaking his head disapprovingly.
“Tisk tisk, ponies, nothing at all? No special weapon or plan that you spent months devising? you all must be even stupider than I gave you credit for. Oh well, you had your chance. My turn.” Discord snapped his fingers again. An unseen catwalk that had been suspended above the crowd began to creak. It collapsed within seconds, crushing a multitude of ponies below. Screaming was heard from within the crowd.
A glow could be seen around discord’s claw as all of the remaining ponies levitated and slammed into nearby walls. Discord’s grin widened as he moved over to them, one by one.
As Discord approached the last remaining pony, he saw tears streaking down his face. He struggled against the powerful telekinesis that bound him, with no success.
“Well, well, pony, it seems that you’re the last one left. how does that make you feel?”
The pony managed to look up and spit at Discord.
“You just murdered everypony I’ve ever known right in front of me. How do you think I feel?”
“Hm, well I’ll tell you what. Since you got lucky being last I’ll be nice for a bit. You get to choose how I kill you. Something painless I expect.”
The pony glared at him. “You bastard. You can’t keep this up forever. Some day, somepony stronger than any of us will come and kill you.” The stallion was was choking back more tears now. “Ponies have more will than you think, you know. Some day, we’ll win and you will regret everything that you’ve ever done.”
“What a waste of a last breath.” Discord drew back his claw, and began to thrust at the pony’s chest, but he hesitated. The pony’s words were sinking in.
Discord realized, that someday, he could actually be defeated. One day, the ponies would either come up with a better plan, or produce a hero that had the strength to challenge him.
Suddenly, an idea crossed through Discord’s mind. He would be prepared for his own defeat. His newest plan would be brilliant, and terrible.
Discord dropped his claw. The pony looked at him with confusion. From outside, a faint snap could be heard.
451 years later, End of Discordian Era
Discord’s body slammed into a wall, and he slowly rolled off of it. The bright sun in the statue garden glared into his eyes, and he turned to escape it. He saw beside him the two alicorns that had brought him there. He painstakingly got up and moved to face them. He tried to chuckle, but his lungs hurt.
“So, this is what it finally takes to even challenge me? Two mutant freak-ponies with amazing magical power? I can’t say I’m not impressed, but come on! You’ve had almost a thousand years to beat me, and all you get is some genetic mix up? I had hoped you would have tried cunning or something, but I suppose brute strength is all you can really figure out.” He paused for a moment and assumed a fighting stance. “Anyways, I hope you don’t think I’m done yet, because you’ve got a long road ahead of you!”
Discord was completely bluffing at this point. He had realized that his defeat was inevitable soon after the fight began. He was just toying with the alicorns for his amusement. If anything, he almost hoped they could have defeated him sooner. His greatest act was so close to starting, he could barely wait.
The smaller, blue alicorn launched herself at discord and began a flurry of magically enhanced hoof-strikes. Discord deflected them diligently, but could only do so for a time. A punch slipped past his guard and caught him straight in the chest. A small amount of blood left his mouth as he was thrown into the air. Soon after, the larger white Alicorn teleported above him and bucked him right back down.
Discord was unable to bring himself up from the small crater he had created. He knew that the end had come. He levitated himself onto an empty stone pedestal. He was now unable to hold back his laughter. Now was his chance to give them the opening.
“Oh dear, it seems you’re stronger than even I thought. Unfortunately for you, even that’s not good enough.”
As he continued his speech to distract them, he stopped paying any attention to them. He gathered his remaining energy. In his mind, he formed a magic bulge of all his past experiences. Every time he had ever killed a pony, watched one die, or had one executed flowed into the ball. He merged this ball with his very soul, creating something similar to a tumor inside of it.
Discord finished his speech. He attempted to step off the pedestal, but found he was unable to move his feet. He saw the blue alicorn reciting an incantation, while the white one levitated 6 orbs around her.
“Face it Discord, you’ve been doomed since the minute we came here. Stop trying to stall and accept your fate.” Said the white alicorn. “We’re more cunning than you thought. We went through a lot of trouble finding these. With the elements of harmony on our side, you don’t stand a chance!”
“Oh blah, blah, blah. Just get on with it!” Shouted Discord from his pedestal.
Both alicorns touched their horns together. The elements started spinning faster and faster around them, until they were just a blur. A blinding light appeared at the top of their horns, followed by a rainbow. The rainbow burst out, and arced towards Discord.
Discord grinned from ear to ear. He struck a pose on the pedestal and awaited the impact. It finally came, and although it carried no force, he could feel it gushing through him. Within moments, he could no longer feel his legs, followed by his waist.
The white mare smiled. “You lose, discord.”
“Dear, I’m afraid the game hasn’t even started.”
As discord’s neck turned to stone, his last thought was his regret that he would never see them suffer after his plan began.
the two mares approached the newly made statue. Energy circled around it at an increasing speed as the drew near. The energy of discord’s immortal soul floated around in front of him. Finally, the soul seemed to recognize who had defeated it. It divided itself into two pieces and flowed into both of them. For a brief moment, The white mare seemed to glow a purple shade, but it left as soon as it began.
Neither payed any attention to it. All that was important to them was that they were successful, and that long awaited change would finally come to Equestria.
307 CL (Cel-Lunar era)
Celestia was in a very good mood. Everything that day had happened had been exactly as she had wanted it. As she walked down the castle corridors, she knew it would only get better.
As she drew closer to the throne room, she heard a voice from behind her.
“Um... Princess Celestia?”
She recognized the voice as one of her advisers. He had a brown coat and a white mane. She turned to him to respond.
“What is it?”
“Permission to speak freely?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you have to do this? I don’t see why you can’t just continue ruling us like you have for the last 300 years since Discord’s defeat. For that matter, I have the utmost respect for you of course, but can we really trust your student? You are the oldest and most powerful pony in equestria, and she’s just a unicorn! What if she abuses her power? We could be sent right back into Discordian times!”
“Didn’t I explain all of that when I announced this very event?”
“I may have... fallen asleep when you did that your highness.”
Celestia smiled warmly, and looked him in the eye.
“Well, to answer your first question, I have to do this because of the nature of immortality. When Luna and I defeated Discord, we both took a part of his immortal soul, and therefore became immortal. However, an immortal soul doesn’t work quite like a normal one. You see, although the soul gives immense magical power, it slowly degrades the body. If one stays immortal for a very long time, their body would become shrivelled and useless. Discord remained immortal for as long as he did because he took the souls of the ponies who he killed, which rejuvenated his body. I have no intention of doing that. Instead, I want to give my power away. If I don’t, when my body becomes too weak, my magic power will fade as well. If I lose my power, nopony will be able to raise the sun. And as for your second question, yes, I do trust her. Starswirl the Blue Maned has been my faithful student she was a young filly, and I know that she would never abuse her power.”
Celestia waited for a response, did not receive one. She saw that the pony has sat down and was staring at the floor.
“Did you catch any of that?”
The adviser jumped up and stared at Celestia with a very embarrassed look. Celestia laughed for a moment.
“I suppose I’ll explain again another time. But now I really should be going, the ceremony is going to begin very soon!”
Celestia continued into the throne room. As she trotted in, she saw a multitude of journalists, nobles, and scientists who hoped to study the mechanics of soul transfer. She saw her sister, Luna, smiling at her from a ways away from an elevated position on a balcony. She also saw her student, waving to the others around her.
She moved to the center of the room and switched to her royal Canterlot voice to adress her subjects, and so that everypony in the large room could hear her.
“Welcome, all who come to see this great moment in Equstrian history! I am very pleased to see you all here, my beloved subjects. Today, I am here to bestow the highest honor I can to a very special mare, my personal student, Starswirl the Blue Maned!” Celestia waited for a bit as the crowd cheered. “Without further delay, let us begin the ceremony! Starswirl, please come forward.”
Starswirl gracefully trotted towards Celestia. When she reached her, she bowed respectfully.
“Starswirl, are you you are about to be crowned as the new leader of all equestria. This means that you will have to take responsibility for all the ponies of your nation. You must take responsibility for all of Equestria’s foreign affairs and our stable economy. Are you ready for this?”
Starswirl quickly fixed her mane from taking the force of the Canterlot voice.
“Yes, I do.”
Celestia lowered her horn. Magic began swirling around it as she tried to reach her soul. However, the moment her magic touched it, she immediately knew something was wrong. She tried to pull away, but found she couldn’t move. Suddenly, she heard a voice that she recognized. It was a message from Discord.
“Why hello there, my fair alicorn. It would seem that you’ve finally activated my last, and best prank. Just before you so rudely decided to take my soul, I put a little curse in it. As for what it does, well you’ll find out in just a moment. Anyways, it seems you just got the short end of the stick when the bit of my soul that was cursed went into you, and not your friend, or sister, whatever. Have fun!”
Starswirl lifted her head “Celestia, is something wrong?”
Celestia knew exactly what the curse meant she had to do. She could feel the message being sent into her thoughts. For the rest of her life, she would have to kill anyone who would take her soul. She began to panic. She tried to back away from starswirl, but she still couldn’t move. She pushed harder, putting all of her force into getting away. The moment she did this, she was overwhelmed by intense, burning pain. Celestia screamed, and almost collapsed.
“Celestia, what’s happening? What’s going on?”
Celestia tried one more time to wrench away from Starswirl. This caused the pain to reach it’s peak. She reared her head back, and pointed her horn at Starswirl. As though it was forced out by some internal pressure, a fire appeared on top of it.
“Celestia?”
Celestia could bear it no longer. Partially involuntarily, Celestia released her magic. Starswirl was engulfed in a blazing inferno that stopped just short of the large crowd that was a ways behind her. The room became total chaos as all the ponies inside ran for their lives.
All the pain vanished in an instant. Celestia ran towards the ashes that were once her best student. She dropped to the floor. She saw the soul of Starswirl leave her remains. It simply hovered for a moment, then flowed into Celestia’s horn. She could feel it slowly bringing her body back to a state that was stronger.
“No, no! NO!” Celestia screamed once more, and then simply cried into the ashes.
1 week later
For the first time since Starswirl died, Celestia had managed to bring herself out of her room. She didn’t want to, but her advisers said it was very important. She followed them into the dark room where meetings were held. She saw the cold stares of everypony in the room. Some looked angry, while others looked simply scared of her.
Celestia addressed them all. “Thank you for comming here.” She said, as though she had planned the meeting herself. “I understand that you are all looking for clarification as to what happened during the ceremony last week.”
She proceeded to explain to them the events that had led up to Starswirl’s death. When Celestia was done, an awkward silence drifted into the room. Celestia was the first to break it again.
“I’ve arranged so that nopony will know about the curse. Officially, I was sick when it happened and I temporarily lost control of my magic. We don’t want any kind of rebellion or for ponies to think I’m a monster.”
Celestia knew she had to get to the point.
“I’m afraid that because of this, I will have no choice but to leave Equestria.” Everypony in the room suddenly lost all traces of the previous silence. “We simply don’t know enough about the curse in my soul. For all any of us knows, I might be forced to kill anypony who even mentions inheriting the throne. I am a danger to all of you and I would like to leave for your safety. I will still raise the sun, but Luna can take my place as high princess of Equestria.”
Luna scowled at Celestia. “Sister, though I respect your concerns, that can never work. Eventually, your immortality will wither you. Only you have the strength to lift the sun, and when the time comes that you are unable to, all of Equestria, and every other nation will perish. We need a system in which you can maintain your power until you are able to release it to somepony else.”
“But Luna, that’s impossible! I can’t give up my power without killing somepony!”
“I know that! I never said that wasn’t true!”
The two broke into a loud argument. All the other ponies could simply watch as the sisters bickered back and forth at each other. Suddenly, one of them raised a hoof. It was the adviser who had spoken to Celestia just before the incident.
“Excuse me, but I think I might be able to help here.”
The two princesses both looked at him.
“Well what do you have in mind?” replied Celestia.
The advisor gave a very serious look to both of them. “If killing is what has to happen, then that’s what has to happen. I saw Starswirl’s soul go into Celestia as she died. Celestia became stronger as it happened. If we simply feed her a soul every so often, she could rule us forever.”
Celestia’s look turned to one of horror at this idea. The advisor ignored it.
“However, I understand we don’t want this to continue. As unfortunate as it is, eventually, Celestia will have to be killed in order to give power to somepony else. The only ponies who would have even close to the skill needed to accomplish that would be the very best of the best- Celestia’s top students. Every so often, Celestia and her best pupil will have to fight to the death. If Celestia wins, she gains there soul and can continue to rule us. If not, then the student will take power as the new leader and the violence can end. Furthermore, if you are beaten by your student, it would mean that the new ruler would have to be more powerful or more intelligent than you. Equestria can only become stronger.”
Celestia’s expression had by now turned to one of anger.
“That is... the most disgusting thing I have ever heard! How dare you ask me to kill my own students? I should have you-”
“If you think you know another way, I would love to hear it.”
“Can’t we just have all of my best students work together to kill me?”
“I decided to brush up on soul transfer after I last spoke to you. I’m afraid your soul would divide into too many pieces. None of them would gain the strength necessary to raise the sun.”
“Can we just restrain me enough to make me an easy target?”
“I don’t think we have anything strong enough to hold you.”
“Well maybe we can-”
Celestia stopped mid-sentence. She hated it more than anything else, but he was right. She was unable to think of anything else to do. She gave a cold, defeated sigh.
Celestia began again. “You are fired from your position as my advisor. Please pack your belongings and leave the castle by noon tomorrow.”
“I understand, Princess.” He got up, and slowly left the room.
“I will begin work on creating a new spell. I can’t remove the curse, but I can create a filter for it. When my soul is moved to another pony, the curse will be destroyed.”
Celestia rose from her position. “This meeting is adjourned.”
“But sister, you can’t possibly-!”
“Meeting. Adjourned.”
Celestia stormed out and returned to her room. She buried her head in her pillow. Her life would never be the same again.
2 CL2 (second Cel-lunar era)
- What is the name of the magical force that holds atoms together?
A. Strong magic force
B. Weak magic force
C. gravity
D. telekinesis
It was an easy question. Twilight filled in the empty circle next to B.
- What is zero point energy?
A. Light emitted by particles
B. Thermal energy inside a nucleus
C. Magical energy visibly emitted by particles
D. Magical energy that may exist due to uncertainty
This one was a bit harder. She searched through her memory for the answer. After a few seconds, she marked D on the exam. She gave a sigh of relief. That had been the last question on the exam. Twilight glanced around the room. It seemed that she was the first one to finish.
She raised a hoof to signal that she had finished. The pony overseeing the exam trotted over and took it to be graded.
Twilight wiped a bit of sweat off of her forehead. She had been studying for almost a month for that test, and she had finally completed it.
Several minutes later, the next pony finished the test. Soon afterwards, most of the ponies in the room raised their hoofs to have their exam collected. Within 15 minutes, everypony in the room had finished.
As Twilight left the room, she overheard ponies commenting on the excessive difficulty of the exam. Though the problems near the end were significantly less difficult, some of the calculations had been very challenging.
As she exited the facility, she questioned the content of the test. While there were plenty of advanced magic concepts, there was a strange focus on combat magic. They had been warned that it would be a large portion, and she had studied it extensively, but she couldn’t figure out why. She decided it was irrelevant, and
She would not know how she had done until several days later, when she received a letter from Celestia. It read:
“Dear Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student,
I would like to personally congratulate you on your performance in the Private Equine Final Exam! Your score was the highest out of all who participated, with a perfect 100%! In order to congratulate you, I am inviting you to stay in Canterlot Castle for 2 weeks. I also have some very important news to discuss with you once you arrive. A escort is ready to pick you up whenever you send word that you are ready to go.
Sincerely, Princess Celestia”
Twilight was completely overjoyed. Not at the invitation to Canterlot Castle, but with satisfaction that she scored the highest out of all the students. When she fully realized that she would also get to meet with Celestia, her happiness only grew.
She quickly checked her calendar to make sure she had no appointments for the next 2 weeks. It seemed that she was completely free. Without a moment’s hesitation, she began writing to all her friends that she would be gone for two weeks. She then sent a reply to Celestia saying that she was ready to be picked up. After around an hour, a chariot pulled by two armored stallions arrived outside the library.
Twilight trotted over to enter it, but Spike came running out to catch up with her.
“Come on Twilight, why can’t I come?”
Twilight looked sympathetic “I would love to take you spike, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to! This is a reward for getting top score in the final exam, and you didn’t even take it. Besides, somepony needs to take care of Owlowiscious.”
Spike sighed, and begrudgingly went back inside.
When Twilight arrived in the castle, she had a feeling of nostalgia. She never really missed her days as a lonely student here, but returning did bring back some fond memories.
Princess Celestia was waiting when she arrived. After some formal greetings, Celestia showed Twilight to her room. It was a very large room, similar to the one Rarity had received on her recent trip to Canterlot. However, whereas Rarity’s room had models for fashion designs and a fancy bed, Twilight’s room had large bookshelves, full of works by nearly every author she could think of. The bed was also smaller and simpler than rarity’s, as well as more to Twilight’s taste.
As she looked in splendor at her new quarters, she realized how tired she was. It was getting late, and Twilight decided she needed to get some rest. She shuffled into her new bed. It was perfectly firm.
Twilight awoke early the next morning. She dragged herself out of bed and performed her morning routine. After she finished, she began what she planned to do for most of the day- read. She walked over to the bookshelf. She had already gone through most of the books available, but she found one that peaked her interest and pulled it off the shelf. She had only read the first few pages when she heard a knock on the door.
Slightly annoyed by the distraction, she telekineticly opened the door opened the door without even looking at it.
“Who is it?” she asked bitterly.
“It’s Celestia.”
Twilight nearly fell over when she heard the voice. She tried to compose her self for the princess.
“Oh! Celestia! I wasn’t expecting you so early! What do you need?”
“All I need from you is to follow me to somewhere private.”
Twilight looked at her questioningly “Alright princess...”
She followed Celestia through the castle until they reached Celestia’s room. Celestia closed and locked the door behind them. Twilight looked around nervously.
“So Princess Celestia, what is it you need to talk to me about?”
Celestia gave a pained expression “This is something I truly despise having to tell you, Twilight.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s another reason that you had to come to Canterlot, Twilight.”
“Well what would that be?”
Celestia explained everything to Twilight from the beginning. She told her about the curse, and everything else up to that point. She explained what had come to be known as the rite of ascension, or just “The Rite.”
“I have to.... I have to... fight you? To the death?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But, what about my friends? If I die, what will they do? What will you tell them?”
Celestia moved closer to Twilight. She touched her horn to twilight’s. Twilight could could feel Celestia’s magic moving through her body, like something injected into her bloodstream.
“What did you just do to me?”
“I just copied you DNA. If you die, I can use this information to make a copy of you. It will be physically identical to you in every way, but without the memories of what I’m telling you now. Instead, it will have false memories of what it did in Canterlot.”
Twilight was now on the verge of tears. “Celestia, please I don’t want to do this! It’s been such a long time, are you really sure there’s no other way?”
“I’m sure Twilight. The Rite has continued for thousands of years, since long before the banishment of Luna.”
“If that’s the case, then please, just kill me now.”
“What?”
“Celestia, I can’t fight you! You’re too strong! And even if you weren’t, I just can’t bring myself to hurt you! I’m not a fighter pony, I’m just a nerd!”
“Twilight, I can’t do that. I need you to win. I can’t do this anymore. Constantly having these students, watching them grow, and then having to crush them is too painful. I need you to finally end the killing, and get rid of damn curse, by killing me!”
Celestia had been louder than she had intended to in the last part. She looked at Twilight nervously.
Twilight was staring at the ground. Small tears fell from her eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do the stupid rite, even if it means throwing my own life away.”
“Just promise me one thing, Twilight,”
“What?”
“Please, be prepared. You have two weeks to practice and get ready for our battle. Don’t spend that time just dreading what comes next. You have free access to the mage’s training area after the guards are finished every day. You’ll have plenty of space to practice combat magic there.”
Twilight nodded silently. She turned around, unlocked the door, and left the room. She went all the way back to her own quarters, where she quietly wept. She did not leave until the next day.
Twilight awoke on the floor, next to her bed. She briefly hoped that the events of the previous night had been a dream, but she knew the memories were to vivid. She remembered the last thing Celestia had said to her, about not wasting her time. It was the cruelest thing Celestia had ever asked her to do.
But a word from the Princess is still word from the Princess. If this was what the Princess was asking of her, then she couldn’t disapoint her. Twilight decided she would not cry anymore. When the time arrived, she would be ready to face Celestia. She began to formulate plans in her mind, strategies that she could use against her mentor.
She would be ready, but first she had to make herself a new spell.
