"...for both sun and moon. And harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since."
Twilight Sparkle was reading a book, a very special book, in her favorite part of Canterlot under her favorite tree. The breeze gently rolls over the soft grass as the sun hangs in the sky. Twilight is a purple unicorn with a darker purple mane that has a bright pink streak through it. She also has a starburst cutie mark. As she's looking the book over again, a certain phrase catches her eye and she looks at her book in confusion.
"Hmmm, Elements of Harmony. I know I've heard of those before, but where?"
Suddenly she's stricken by a severe headache. The throbbing pain radiates from deep inside of Twilight's frontal lobe. every second it gets just a little bit stronger until it reaches a peak a few seconds in. It throbs in tandem with her heartbeat and hurts like hell.
"Oh, not again."
Twilight decides it would be a good idea to head back to her library. She carefully packs up her stuff and starts heading back to her library. As she running through the Canterlot gardens when she's intercepted by three unicorns. A blue pony with a white blue streak in her blue and tail and an hourglass cutie mark, a white pony with a pink mane and tail and a three star cutie mark, and a butter yellow pony with a sea blue mane and tail and a three heart cutie mark. They're all carrying presents and look like they're having a good time. The white pony make the first move.
"There you are Twilight. Moondancer is having a little get together in the west castle courtyard. You wanna come?"
Twilight freezes up a little bit when she hears that. As much as she would like to go to her friend's party, this could be really important. She has to do her research and she doesn't have time for the party. But you can't talk to other ponies like that so she has to think fast.
"Oh, sorry girls. I've got a lot of studying to catch up on."
Twilight gives a fake guilty smile and bolts just as her headache get worse. The increased heart rate causes the frequency of the throbbing headache to quicken its pace as blood rushes through her body. Twilight bites her tongue in order to try to maintain her focus as she runs towards the library.
"I know I've heard of the Elements of Harmony."
Twilight passes ponies as she runs as fast as she can towards the library. Most of them only give her a passing glance since seeing Twilight rushing towards the library isn't too much of an odd sight. Though seeing her outside of the library is a bit stranger.
**********************
Twilight finally arrives at the library and her magic springs to life as she swings the door to her library open with there's a loud thud as it hits the wall. She rushes deeper into the library, which is massive in size. It's filled with large shelves, multiple levels, and lots of books, all of which is crafted beautifully in a nice gothic style. Twilight's magic reaches out and starts pulling books off of the shelves, searching for one that could help her figure out what the elements of harmony are. However a few books in and she's not even closer to finding the books she's looking for. She puts the books back and starts looking around, wonder where the hell her assistant is.
"Spike?! SPIKE!"
Spike the baby dragon walks out from behind a shelf and looks at twilight with a deadpan stare. Spike is a relatively large dragon with well kept scales and a good posture. Most of his scales are purple and his underbelly is green. He has a row of green spines running down his back from his head to his tail. He walks over to Twilight and raises an eyebrow at her as he wonders why she's shouting.
"Yeah?"
When Twilight sees him she sighs in relief. She's glad that she was able to find him quickly because that means that they'll be able to search through the library even faster. Though the painful throbbing in her head reminds her that she needs to solve one problem at a time.
"There you are."
Twilight rushes over to the medicine cabinet in a hurry to end that blasted headache. Before anything else happens, she needs to take care of this throbbing headache. No thinking can be done while your head feels like it's about to explode. Especially when they seems to be getting more frequent.
"Quick, find me that old copy of Predictions and Prophecies."
Despite her best efforts Twilight can't find the opioi- I mean Tylenol. However there doesn't seem to be any in the medicine cabinet. The only bottle is completely empty. She rolls her eyes and she closes the cabinet and starts trying to remember where she might have put any reserve pain relievers.
"Could you also find the pain medication?"
Spike dons a look of concern at that statement. He starts looking in the last place he saw Twilight messing with the groceries when she went shopping last time, hiding a small wince as he walks around the library.
"Another one of your migraines?"
Twilight tries to dismiss Spikes concern. She'd been having these strange migraines ever since she was small so she's been in rough shape for a while now. She does her best to cope but sometimes it can be overwhelming. None of the professionals that she's seen about it can seem to figure out what cases it so she's just been doing her best to live with it for the longest time now.
"It's just a headache Spike."
Spike eventually finds the pain meds in the top of the pantry of all places. Spike doesn't get Twilight's strange organizational systems sometimes but it makes things at least a little easier to find. Spike brings the pills to Twilight who grabs the bottle in her aura with a relieved smile.
"Thank you Spike. I don't know how I'd do this without you."
Twilight walks over to her room in the library and she grabs a glass of water. She opens the bottle and pops three of the pills into her mouth and downs it with the water before putting the pills in the medicine cabinet for later possibly. While she was doing that Spike was putting away a few books that they'd recently gotten back from various ponies.
"Whatever it is, we should seriously consider getting you rechecked out. This is the seventh time this week and it looks like they might be getting worse."
Twilight waves a hoof dismissively. Now isn't the time for this. A light pleasant buzzing sensation fills Twilight's head as she starts looking for the book she was looking for. She wonders if maybe she should cut back next time before she dismisses that thought in favor of going back to her search.
"Don't worry so much spike, it's not important. Right now I need to find Predictions and Prophecies."
Twilight starts going over her mental list trying to remember how it goes. The buzz is slightly jumbling things around but for the most part things still make sense. She walks over to the shelf that she thinks should have the book and starts looking it over.
"Now where's that book?"
Spike gives Twilight a worried glance as she starts looking in the wrong area. He hopes that she won't need to take those pills eventually. Though he knows that right now she'd be laying in bed unable to move without them. He starts running through the possibilities in his head and he has an idea. He climbs the ladder in the myths section and finds the book on the top shelf. He pulls out the book and turns around to look for Twilight.
"It's over here."
Twilight rips the book out of Spikes hand nearly causing him to fall off of his ladder but he stops himself by grabbing back onto the ladder. He slides down the ladder and runs over to Twilight who's set the book on a podium and is rapidly flashing through the pages with entries about long forgotten monsters passing by.
"Elements, elements, elements. AHA! The Elements of Harmony. See, Mare in the Moon?"
When Twilight says that Spike raises an eyebrow. He's heard that when he was a really young drake from Twilight's mom when she told them but Twilight had never really looked into it after that so neither of them knew exactly what they were. He wonders what she could do with the elements the Twilight is talking about.
"Mare in the Moon? But that's just an old mares tale."
Twilight is suddenly struck by another headache. The throbbing pieces straight through the pain killers bringing with it a sudden amount of clarity. Twilight takes a knee as she does her best to ride the pain and come off when she's gotten used to it at this level. Though it's hard because this is definitely the worst one so far.
"When this is all over I need to check the expiration date on those pills."
Twilight starts flipping through the book again to try to find more information on the mare in the moon. The headache makes it harder, but she wasn't the protege of the ruler of Equestria for nothing. Twilight powers through the pain until she finds what she's looking for.
"Mare, mare, there it is. Lets see 'Mare in the moon: Myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal!' Spike, do you know what this means?!"
Spike looks downtrodden. Now was not the time for something like this. Twilight was already pretty adverse to leaving the library, but something to this effect was going to have her stuck in here for days at a time just looking through every single book all over again.
"No break?"
Twilight rolls her eyes at Spike's question. Now isn't the time for breaks, now is the time for action. This could be a very dangerous threat. Who knows how powerful this Mare in the moon could be. She collects her magic and wills a parchment, quill, and inkwell into Spikes hands.
"Take a note please, to the Princess."
Spike sighs and gets ready to take dictation. If Twilight is certain about this he might as well support her and do his best to make sure that at least she doesn't overwork herself with this project of hers. Hopefully the princess will say something that will get Twilight to calm down
"'My dearest teacher, my continuing studies of pony magic have led me to discover that we are on the precipice of disaster!'"
As Twilight dictates her letter Spike's quills scratches furiously along the paper as he does his best to keep up with Twilight's words. However when she gets to the end of her thought, Spike has to pause and try to figure out what she's saying. Spike looks like he's trying to spell that last word in his head.
"Hold on. Preci, preci?"
Spike looks at twilight in confusion, hoping that she'll remember that he hasn't learned words like that yet. Twilight sees his confusions and does her best to try to think of another word to describe what she's getting across.
"Threshold."
Spike doesn't know how to spell that word either. He starts trying to sound it out in his head but it's not coming to him.
"Thre?"
Twilight is nearing the end of her word rope. She knows that Spike knows these sounds even though she's mostly home schooled him. Why he doesn't seem to be getting it is baffling her.
"Brink?"
Spike still doesn't know how to spell that word. He shakes his head at Twilight, having given up trying to spell the more complicated words that she's trying to tell him to write. Twilight is hit with another bump in her headache, but this one is much smaller. However that doesn't stop it from making an already terrible headache worse.
"Ugh. How do you not know this?!"
Spike gives her a deadpan stare as he realizes the Twilight doesn't know that she hasn't taught him those words yet. He hopes that her next ponish lesson will be able to help this not happen again.
"I'm twelve. You're a really good teacher and all, but you need to work on your ponish lessons."
Twilight blushes with embarrassment and lets out a nervous chuckle. She hopes that she hasn't been seriously stunts spike's growth because of this. She lightly shakes her head and does her best to try to keep on topic, trying to come up with a phrase that Spike does know.
"'That something really bad is about to happen.'"
Spike nods and starts writing again. Twilight smiles starts dictating again, intent to try and get this out as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence so she can't afford to make this too long.
"'For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon.'"
Twilight starts pacing around the room as she's dictating to try to take her mind off of the pain. However as she paces she passes by a large hourglass in the middle of the room and for a moment the pain skyrockets. Twilight falls to her knees and lets out a pained shriek as the pain wracks her mind. Spike drops the writing untensils and rushes over to her, trying to see what's wrong with her. However, as qucikly as it came, the pain goes back down to a level a little bit lower than when the headache started in the park.
"Ow. S-spike, I'm fine. Please, keep writing. This is more important."
Twilight decides yo sit down and try to recover from that ordeal as she finishes the letter. Spike gives her a worried glance as he nods and walks back over to the stuff. Luckily none of it spilled so he can start writing again rather quickly. Once Twilight has collected her thoughts once again, she begins her dictation again.
"'And she's about to return to Equestria, and bring with her eternal night! Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your quick response. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.' I need stronger pain meds. Maybe I should tryout some marijuana. Those pills can give a nasty buzz if I take too many."
Twilight stand up again and starts walking towards her room so that she can try to lay down and relax. Spike sends the letter by breathing fire on it and letting the magic carry it away to the princess. He then picks up the quill and ink and follows Twilight to her room, putting them away as Twilight rests on her couch.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? I heard it's some nasty stuff."
Twilight looks annoyed by that statement. She wonders where Spike could have heard nasty stuff if they both rarely ever go outside. Sure she may take him to the park now and then, but most ponies usually don't let their foals play with him.
"Spike if you'd actually read into it you'd find that there's no actual health risks associated with marijuana."
Spike just rolls his eyes. He'll be the first to admit that he probably isn't the best dragon to ask about something like that. He just hopes that Twilight knows what she's doing and not just getting desperate for something else.
"Whatever you say. Are you sure Celestia will even care about this? I mean, what with the summer sun celebration she's probably pretty busy."
Twilight starts twitching. But she calms herself down a little bit. This whole this is really stressing her out. Just thinking about it is enough to make her panic if she wasn't in control. And the thought that Celestia wouldn't care about a threat like this is just absurd. Of course she cares. This is really big.
"That's just it. The summer sun celebration is the longest day of the thousandth year. It's imperative that the princess is told right away."
It's Spike's turn to look annoyed. Does she think that he doesn't know all of this already? It's not like every year that he's been alive at this time of year they hold the Summer Sun Celebration just like they did last year. Oh wait, that is what happens.
"You're exposition-ing again."
Twilight gives Spike a playful glare for a moment before she thinks of something and that playful glare turns into a smug grin of superiority.
"Says the drake who told me about the Celebration I know of and have participated in many times."
Spike chuckles a little bit and gives Twilight a sly grin. So that's how she wants to play this, huh? Well, Spike isn't defenseless. He's got a couple of tricks up his sleeves.
"I'm sorry. It just seemed like you forgot about it since you're bugging the princess with this this and I can only assume she's under a lot of stress."
The sarcasm is pouring off of Spike's lips like a waterfall. Twilight's headache starts waving in strength, trending downward. Twilight is relieved that the headache seems to be starting to fade from her head and leave her in peace. Spike's expression turns to that of a realist.
"Either way, I wouldn't hold my breath."
Twilight sighs. She wishes that this was something that she could just let go like the chaos prophecy or the origins of the null magic artifacts, but the deadline is so close and if it is true than some many ponies could get hurt if she doesn't act right now.
"I'm not worried. The princess trusts me completely."
Spike shrugs and is about to go to his bed to rest when he feels a build up of magic in his chest. The build up grows larger and works it way up Spikes throat until Spike burps up the responding letter and catches it out of the air. Twilight smiles as she sees the parchment with the royal seal fall right into Spike's hands.
"See, I knew she would want to take immediate action."
Suddenly, without warning or precedent, a voice whispers something. It's a small voice, but it's not incomprehensible. The ethereal voice whispers a single word before vanishing completely.
"...Ponyville..."
Twilight's ears perk up as she looks around and tries to figure out who could have made that strange noise. But the only creature she sees is Spike, but that didn't sound like Spike. Her mind starts running through what could be happening.
"Did you say something Spike?"
Spike looks confused. He say Twilight suddenly perk up and starts looking around the room suspicious. This just adds to his worries about her health. Is she hearing things or something?
"No."
Twilight shrugs, dismissing it as the stress cauing her to hallucinate a little bit. Nothing she can't handle after deeling with several no sleep marathons to study for a test. Spike sees Twilight relax and since things seem to be okay, he reads the letter allow, clearing his throat before he starts.
"'My dearest most faithful student Twilight, you know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely, but you simply must stop reading those dusty old books.'"
And with those words Twilight's headache returns with a powerful vengeance.
**********************
After the news, Twilight was immediately on her way to a place she'd never been to and never wanted to go to, Ponyville. A small hamlet in the middle of nowhere with nothing interesting except for deceptively fertile soil and the closest real estate to the Everfree single bits can buy. A small town with nopony important practically hidden in the valley between Canterlot mountain and the Unicorn mountain range. It was one thing to tell her that she needed to head their to check on how their set up for the festivities was going, but to tell her to shove out immediately with almost not time to pack was absurd. Not to mention how embarrassing it was that Twilight's worries were shoved aside as nothing more than her reading one to many "dusty old books." How could Celestia say something like that? Sure, her past couple of fits didn't turn up anything, but that's no reason that this couldn't be true. Along the way Spike finishes reading the letter.
"'My dear Twilight, there's more to a young pony's life then studying. So I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the summer sun celebration is this year's location, Ponyville.'"
Twilight looks at the flying chariot they're in. it was a small chariot, meant for scenic transport instead of moving cargo. It's rather small and golden, with she shield at the front curving down as it curved towards the back.
"I wish they'd put a shield on these flying carts, or at least a back. What if we fall out?"
Spike points at the guards escorting them, not really interested in one of Twilight's many mini tirades about things that are much smaller than most ponies notice.
"One of the royal guards will catch us. 'And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete. Make some friends.'"
Twilight groans in agony, and this time not just from her newly reemerging headache. Make friends? She already had friends. Even though she didn't hand out with some of them as much, she at least had Moondancer. Was just Moondancer not good enough for her? She rests her head against the raining of the chariot and grumbles wordlessly to herself as she contemplates how much of a pain this is going to be. Spike sees Twilight getting into a funk and tries to think of a way to cheer up Twilight.
"Look, on the bright side, at least they put you in a library. It might not be the Canterlot Library but it's better than nothing. I'd also be willing to bet the earth ponies here have got some good pain medication."
Twilight smiles and chuckles to herself as Spike says that. She had made sure to pack her pills just in case her headache got really bad, but she know it wouldn't be appropriate in polite company, so she hoped that they might have something else she can use.
"Thanks Spike. And you know what? I'm still right. I'll get this over with quickly, get those pain meds, and then go to the library to find some proof of Nightmare Moon's return."
Spike gives Twilight a raised eyebrow in response. He doesn't need to be a genius to see that Twilight is trying to get around Celestia's orders. This could be something to get Twilight out of her shell and he's not going to let this go to waste.
"But the princess also said to make some friends. You wouldn't want to upset her."
Twilight waves off the comment. She doesn't know what Celestia is thinking, but now isn't the time to try and make friends in a place she doesn't intent to return to once she was done here. The more she thinks about it the strange that bit gets.
"I'm sure it's just a recommendation as opposed to an actual order. The fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends. Plus, I don't plan on coming here again, so I'd just be leaving them behind."
As the two of them get closer to Ponyville the cart starts slowing lowering towards the ground as the guards transporting them prepare for a landing. They land smoothly and only kick a little bit of dust up as they slide to a stop. Twilight and Spike get off of the chariot and Twilight walks over to the guards while Spike does a quick baggage check.
"Thank you good sirs."
The two of them nod in thanks and start heading back to Canterlot with the golden chariot in tow. Ponyville is just as small as Twilight thought, if not smaller. All the buildings are made of straw, wood, and barely anything else, the town hall looks about to collapse, and she could swear she saw an open market instead of a magically climate controlled store. Spike can see Twilight about to start grumbling again so he makes another attempt to get Twilight out of her shell.
"Would you at least give them a chance? Who knows. Maybe Ponyville has some intellectuals."
Twilight rolls her eyes at that notion. Sure, anypony can become smart if they really apply themselves, but she doubts that a small hamlet like this has the resources to produce a pony like that. As she's think this, a pink earth pony with a pink mane and a three balloon cutie mark, was happily skipping by.
The voice returns.
"...Pinkie Pie..."
As Twilight saw the pony her headache both reached new heights and subsided, as if the pain knew this pony. The closer the pony gets to her the more she thinks that this pony is somehow familiar. And the voice from before saying a name that would certainly match this pony is just adding onto the strangeness. Eventually the pony gets close to Twilight and stops to look her over. Twilight wines as the pony being this close is agitating her migraine, but she feels almost compelled to figure out who this is.
"Um, hello."
Before Twilight can say anything else the pony gasps which causes her to hover about a meter above the ground, defying the very force of gravity that should be pulling her back down to the ground. The pink pony then propels herself through the air in some direction unknown to Twilight without even a set of wings to send her along. The pain subsides a little bit, but it's most certainly not gone as Twilight tries to wrap her head around an earth pony flying away.
"What the heck was that!"
Spike watched the whole ordeal from the sidelines and was amazed when he say Twilight try to start a conversation with the strange pink pony. However his eyes catch Twilight wincing in pain as the pony gets closer to her, and he wonders if the pink pony is somehow hurting her before she leaves.
"That was so weird."
Twilight seems oblivious to his concern, more focused on the pink ponies inexplicable ability to defy the laws of physics as Twilight knows them. The mental gymnastics Twilight is going through to try to understand what she's seeing are at the very least distracting her from her ever throbbing migraine.
"I know! How could an earth pony hover?!"
Spike shakes his head. Twilight is really smart but sometimes she can miss something that's right in front of her. He grabs up his bag from the ground and then walks back over to Twilight.
"No I mean you willingly starting a conversation."
Twilight looks confused. For her the last couple of seconds were already kind of a blur due to the pain coursing through her skull. She certainly remembered talking to the strange pink pony, but she doesn't remember that she was the one who initiated the talking.
"I did?"
Spike nods, ready for this little bit to be over so that they can start doing their chores and maybe giving Twilight enough time to make a friend when their done. For her sake he hopes that whoever they find will be able to help her out a little bit.
"Yeah."
Twilight shakes her head vigorously to try and get rid of the feeling that the experience brought. If she can forget this whole village by the time she's done she'll consider that a win. She picks up her bag and starts leading Spike over to the library where they'll be staying while they're in town.
"It must be the headache. Let's continue."
**********************
After their faithful encounter with that strange pink pony and putting their stuff in the library so that they can go about their business, Spike is sent the overseer's checklist. Looking it over, the first thing on the list is the food, and the place and name that were listed with it are "Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack." Twilight and Spike start heading in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres, taking in the sights of the town as they go along. The town itself was very nice to look at if you were into the sort of rustic look it had. However Twilight most certainly wasn't into it, so she was just sort of ignoring the scenery unless something really specific catches her eyes. Eventually they come up on the apple orchard. It's the biggest piece of capital in Ponyville and had a few financial backers invested in it, a couple of whom are even in Canterlot. it was nearly 300 mile of nonstop apple trees with an acre of special zap apple trees, a barn, and a house to top it all off. They'd recently been able to add a large section of land to their own after a competitor had left town. Also in the distance Twilight could also see a strange building. She didn't see it registered in the overseer's papers, but they weren't always thorough so she made a mental note to look into it later. As they walk into the orchard Twilight and Spike see and hear a look of ponies running through the orchard doing all kind of things. It looks like they were celebrating something because there were lots of dinner table scattered about. Upon entering their ears are assaulted by a loud shout.
"YEEHAW!!!"
An orange mare with a Stetson, a blond mane, and a three apple cutie mark charges at an apple tree as if she were going to use her momentum to knock the apples out of the tree. Both Twilight and Spike face hoof/palm (respectively) as she stops in front of the tree, negating all her momentum, and just kicks it and the apples fall out. Twilight's headache subsides when she looks at the mare. Twilight walks over to the mare almost subconsciously.
"Good afternoon, I'm Twilight Sparkle."
The moment Twilight finished that sentence she felt the crushing pain of a racist stereotypical hillbilly hoof shake. The perpetrator of which starts speaking in a thick southern accent.
"Well howd'ya do miss Twilight. A pleasure makin' your acquaintance. I'm Applejack. We here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do love makin' new friends."
Twilight tries to speak, though the constant shacking of her hoof is moving through her body and jumbling up her words, and most certainly not helping her headache.
"Well actually-"
Before Twilight can finish her sentence there's a sudden jolt as Applejack lets go of her hoof and stops throttling it. Twilight lightly shakes her hoof to try and make the pain go away faster as Applejack starts talking again.
"So, what can I do ya for?"
Once Twilight's hoof has calmed down a bit she sets it back down on the ground and faces Applejack with an annoyed look on her face.
"Well, I am in fact here to supervise preparations for the summer sun celebration. You're in charge of the food?"
Applejack gives Twilight a nod and motions for Twilight to follow her. Twilight and spike look at each other before they decide to follow her. Applejack starts leading them deeper into the compound.
"We sure as sugar are. Would you care to sample some?"
Twilight looks around the orchard as they walk through it. The apples that are still on the branches certainly look ripe. And the wide variety at least mean that all of the food shouldn't taste exactly the same.
"As long as it doesn't take to long."
Applejack runs over to a dinner triangle and starts banging it loudly yelling "SOUP'S ON EVERYPONY!!!". As soon as Applejack says that there's a rumbling sound coming from around them. Twilight and Spike look around to see all of the ponies stampeding towards them. Twilight and Spike close their eyes for fear of their lives but instead of being trampled they're picked up by the crowd. When they open their eyes they find themselves at the head of a table.
"Now, why don't I introduce y'all to the Apple family."
Twilight gives a nervous laugh. This is a lot more than she expected and is comfortable with. She does her best to control her breathing and it's a miracle she's as calm as she is.
"Thanks but we really need to hurry."
Applejack ignores her. And jumps right into naming the names of her entire family. Twilight can only look at the mare in shock as she blatantly ignores her freaking out.
"This here's Apple Fritter, Apple Bumpkin, Red Gallon, Red Delicious, GoldenDeliciousCaramelAppleAppleStrudelAppleTartBackedAppleAppleBriocheAppleCinimmoncrisp..."
Applejack takes a deep breath.
"...Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, aaaaaaaaand Granny Smith. Up and at'um Granny, We got guests."
A very old green earth pony mare rocking in a chair gets up from her chair and starts walking over to the group. Twilight can swear that she can hear the mare's bones creaking as she slowly shambles towards the table.
"Why, I'd say they're already part of the family."
Twilight starts trying to back away. This is way too much. Too many ponies all way too clones to her. She starts to sweat a little bit as she can feels them closing in on her.
"Okay, well I can see the food situation is handled. So we'll be on our way."
Twilight turns around to leave but she's confronted with a small yellow earth pony filly with bright red mail and tail and a neon pink bow. She's looking up at Twilight with puppy dog eyes and looks like she's on the verge of crying.
"Aren't ya gonna stay for brunch?"
Twilight is hit with the full force of puppy dog eyes. Even Twilight's cold, logical, and scared heart can't defend against the pure power of the pout face. Twilight isn't quite sure what to say to the little filly. She doesn't want her to cry but they have things to do and there's a lot of ponies here.
"I'm sorry, but we have an awful lot to do."
Every member of the Apple family gives an "Awww." of disappointment. One pony with puppy dog is a heartthrob. a bunch of ponies all giving vocal disappointment is powerful peer pressure.
"Fine."
Everyone yells in joy, except Twilight and Spike who cover their ears. The two of them hope they know what they're getting into.
**********************
After having eaten with the best of them, even though she's not the best of them, Twilight and Spike head out of the orchard to check on the weather mare. So far it didn't look like there was any weather mare because it had been very cloudy ever since she got to Ponyville. Twilight gives a pained groan as she can feel all of the food in her stomach pressing against her stomach walls.
"I ate too much pie."
Spike gives a contented sigh and pats his belly. He's definitely gotten more out odd this than Twilight thanks to the black hole he considers his stomach to be. As they're walking along Spike looks over the list and then starts looking through the sky to try to find the weather mare.
"Rainbow Dash is supposed to be clearing the clouds but it's almost completely overcast."
Twilight turns her head to the sky, not seeing hide nor hair of the pegasus that they're looking for. And Spike was right about the clouds. This was terrible weather for observing the sun through. Twilight wonders how somepony could be so careless.
"Well she's not doing a very good job, is she."
Suddenly there's a faint whistling sound, but it's quickly getting a lot louder. There's a loud shout before Twilight is abruptly crashed into by a cyan pegasus sending both of them to the ground with a couple sickening cracks. A few minutes later the two of them are transported to the hospital.
**********************
At the hospital, the doctor tells Twilight that there were just a couple of fractures and he casts a healing spell to fix them right up. Sadly it doesn't help the headache that hasn't gone away since she got here. He tells Twilight that she should rest for a little while before heading out. As she's waiting the pony who hit her (and frizzled her mane) walks up to her with an embarrassed look on her face. She's got a strange rainbow colored hair pattern.
"Umm, heh heh. Sorry about that."
Twilight scowls at the mare more than she's ever scowled at some pony before. She's been through a lot in her life, but somepony ran right into her, damaged her bones, and this is the best they've got? She could have been way more injured than that.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?!?!?! Not only was what you were doing reckless endangerment, but you're supposed to be clearing the clouds!"
Rainbow Dash's expression changes from that of embarrassment to that of jubilation. She loves talking about her passions and the purple mare seems like she's fine.
"I was practicing for the Wonderbolts."
Twilight looks at her skeptically. Seriously? The Wonderbolts? With her track record so far, Twilight wouldn't even hire her for a menial task, let alone the best flying troop in Equestria.
"I highly doubt the Wonderbolts would want a pony who, not only, is so bad that they hurt ponies when performing a trick, but also can't even clear the sky."
Rainbow looks personally offended by that statement. She can't believe that this purple unicorn is being so rude. She's the best flier around.
"I could clear that sky in ten seconds flat."
Twilight is full on annoyed at this point. This pony'd ego is so grand that she's completely ignoring the fact that she fucked up so badly that she injured another pony while she was practicing her trick.
"Okay, first of all: do you even care that you broke five of my ribs? Secondly: How? You'd have to fly over 2900000 m/s the entire time."
Rainbow Dash takes this as a challenge and flies out the window into the sky where Twilight can see her. She suddenly starts zooming around the sky. She manages to clear a large portion of the sky in the ten seconds she allotted herself. Once she's done there's a decently sized section of cloud cleared away.
"How was that?"
Twilight has surrendered to this pony's ignorance. While it is impressive that Rainbow was able to clear away as much as she did, it was so beside the point that it's not even worth arguing over anymore.
"Mild at best but that doesn't solve the bigger problem of my impending lawsuit against you."
Rainbow doesn't seem to notice as she walks out. A few minutes later Spike comes in and they both leave the hospital. As Twilight leaves she sees Rainbow being handed a court date notice. Twilight doesn't like that she has to do that, but the lesson needs to be learned.
**********************
Next up on the checklist is to go to the town hall to check on a unicorn mare named Rarity who's doing the decorations, so Twilight and Spike decide to head to the town hall now. The town hall is rather small but it looks like it gets the job done. When they enter the decorations are magnificent but they're not done yet. The decor appears to be in a very lace heavy style. They see the mare in charge of the decoration finicking over which shade of red she should use. The moment that Spike lays his eyes on the mare his heart starts beating faster and his pupils dilate as hormones start flooding through his body.
"Oh wow. She's hot!"
Twilight is looking the decorations when she suddenly hears Spike say that. Her eyes widen and her head snaps to look at Spike. She sees how he's eyeing Rarity like she's a potential mate and is so confused as to how this is even possible.
"SPIKE!!! Not only is that rude but why are you sexually interested in a pony?!"
Spike looks at the white pony with sexual intent and for a brief instant his pupils tighten slightly, but they go back to normal quickly as Spike relaxes a little bit.
"Don't know, don't care."
Twilight sighs as she walks over to the pony to ask her about why she's still looking over the same various shades of the color red. Her ever present headache dies down a bit when she sees the pony.
"Good afternoon."
The pony ignores Twilight, choosing instead to continue her intense scrutinizing of the red ribbons in her bid to try to figure out which of them would be the absolute best to use towards the completion of the decorations.
"Just a moment please. I'm 'in the zone' as it were."
It takes a minute, but eventually the pony finally decides on what kind of red she wants. She floats the red lace into its position among the rest of its kind where she thinks the color will do its best to complete the scene. Once she's done she turns to face Twilight to answer her questions.
"Now, how can I help-"
However all of her good will completely drains from her and is replaced by pure shock the moment that she looks at Twilight's hair. It looks like she's been through a tornado without any protection.
"YOU!!! Oh my stars! Darling, whatever happened to your coiffure?!"
Twilight can only stare dumbly at Rarity when she asks that? The look of pure shock that's all over her face seems like a bit of an overreaction to her main being a bit ruffled up. It's not that bad.
"Oh you mean my mane? Well it's a long story involving a stupid mare and a pending lawsuit. I'm just here to check on the decoration and then I'll be out of your hair."
The pony looks at Twilight's hair with great sadness. To see anypony's main is such a state is a travesty. Rarity gets a determined look on her face as she prepares herself to combat this pony's bad hair day.
"Out of my hair?! What about your hair?"
Rarity starts pushing Twilight out of the town hall and to an as of yet unknown location. Spike follows along with his eyes firmly glued on Rarity's ass while Twilight is in great protest the entire trip. She doesn't know where this mare is taking her and she doesn't have time for anything other than her job.
**********************
At Rarity's boutique (house), not only does she cast a spell to fix Twilight's mane, but she also decides that twilight should have a dress on the house, to which Twilight continues her protest. Rarity goes through several crazy and outlandish outfits until she finds one she likes. The boutique is what you'd expect from a high class gal in a low class place. It's very well done with all materials used as well as they could be. Each costume is different than the last with lots of different themes and styles. The one she finally settles on is a dress saddle with an emerald on the front and lots of pearls.
"Now go on my dear. You were telling me where you're from."
Twilight is starting to be really pissed off by all of these ponies. First they over feed her, then they break her ribs, and now she's been kidnapped and is being put through what she can only call fashion torture. What the hell even is this town?
"Actually I wasn't. I was telling you that I was checking on the decorations. But-"
Rarity starts tightening the costume, trying to get it more form fitting. Twilight has to speak while essentially wearing a corset as Rarity starts squeezing her lung of their precious oxygen.
"If it'll stop you from choking me, I'm from Canterlot."
Rarity suddenly lets go with a gasp and they're both sent flying. There's a loud thud as Twilight hits the floor and Rarity hits the back wall. Twilight shakes her head to try to make the world around her stop spinning so that she can stand up. Spike goes over to Rarity and helps her onto her hooves before going over to Twilight to help her as well. Rarity rushes back over to Twilight in a hurry with an excited look on her face.
"CANTERLOT?!?!?! Oh I'm so envious! The glamour and sophistication! I've always dreamed of living there! I can't wait to hear all about it. We're going to be the best of friends, you and I."
Twilight gives her a deadpan stare. That might have been the final straw with this pony. She knows this type. The suck ups. The moment that she thinks that she can use Twilight she springs on it. Unsurprising.
"Oh, so you're one of those ponies."
Rarity is very confused. those ponies? What ever could this pony be talking about? She's just an honest pony who's curios about what it's like to live in the lap of luxury.
"One of what ponies?"
Twilight takes off the costume. She doesn't even have the care to put it back where it came from. She's is just completely done with this pony. She grabs Spike with her telekinesis and drags him away from the pony. Though he starts to walk on his own quickly. Hearing Rarity say what she said kind of deflated him. Twilight doesn't notice and doesn't care because she just wants to get out of there.
"The kind of ponies who only want to be my friend because I'm from Canterlot. Listen, if you don't trouble me on my way out I'll consider not filling another lawsuit. Come on Casanova."
Twilight leaves the boutique and slams the door on the way out. The nerve of some ponies, just viewing her as an object for their own desires.
**********************
Twilight and Spike start heading towards the next location: a cottage dangerously near the Everfree forest that's owned by a pony named Fluttershy. However Twilight manages to ignore that aspect because she's starting to have a conniption over how terrible this has been so far.
"I can't believe the ponies in this town! First I was nearly stuffed to death, then I had several bones broken, and now I was just kidnapped!!!"
Spike is still fantasying about Rarity a bit. As he's thinking about her he starts trying to think of a sliver lining to this situation.
"At least you were kidnapped by a real looker."
Twilight glares at Spike. He is most certainly not helping with that. This day just keeps getting worse and worse. Twilight hopes that this will be over soon so that she can go to the library and start doing her research instead of running errands around a town she is quickly coming to hate.
"Shut up spike."
Eventually they reach their destination. They see the pony who's is listed next to the address. Her house is more like a small cottage and is barely more than a large tree stump. It looks like it should have been condemned a long time ago. The yellow pony herself is also kind of bland with her main physical feature being the long pink mane that should be impossible to keep yet somehow it exists. When they get close they can hear, birds singing in harmony? They look to see the pony is somehow conducting the birds. Twilight supposes that that's probably how she managed to get this position in the first place. Twilight does her best to calm herself down as she walks up to her.
"Hello."
The pony lets out a quiet squeak and jumps a bit when she suddenly hears the unknown voice behind her. All of the birds that were on the tree fly away when Fluttershy stops conducting them.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten your birds. I'm just here to check on the music and it was very impressive."
Twilight gets that strange urge to talk to this pony. Only this time it's stronger. The only problem is there's an awkward silence and the pony wont talk. Fluttershy just hides her face behind her main and starts lightly brushing her front right hoof against the ground.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle. What's your name?"
The pony opens her mouth and, something, comes out. The actually words that the pony uses are muffled by her low volume and her lack of enunciation.
"Umm, I'm Fluttershy."
It would appear that this pony only speaks in mumblese. Twilight rolls her eyes and tries again.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
Fluttershy starts shuffling nervously. She's getting even more nervous that Twilight was with the Apples.
"Um, my name is Fluttershy."
Twilight is starting to get a little bit annoyed at Fluttershy's unwillingness to comply and tell her name to her. Twilight tries one more time.
"Didn't quite catch that."
Fluttershy looks away from Twilight, hiding her face even more behind her massive pink mane.
"Fluttershy."
Fluttershy hides her abject terror of this strong pony from her and hopes that she'll just go away. Twilight gets the hint just as Fluttershy's birds come back.
"Well, um, It looks like your birds are back. It looks like everything's in order so I'll just leave."
Twilight sighs and walks back over to Spike who walks into view of Fluttershy if she ever comes out from behind her mane.
"What a weirdo."
Spike raises an eyebrow. That's rich coming from Twilight.
"Says the unicorn who wouldn't even look at another pony without a signed warrant from the princess."
Twilight looks off in thought. That's a really good point. Ever since she's gotten to this town she's been strangely sociable. It's completely unlike her and it always seems to coincide with meeting the ponies she was supposed to meet for today.
"I know. I think it has something to do with these headaches. Whenever I look at some of these ponies my headaches lessen."
Suddenly out of nowhere there's a relatively loud shout from behind Twilight. Fluttershy had come out from her mane and she saw Spike standing next to Twilight. She was overcome with intense curiosity to talk to this adorable little baby dragon.
"A BABY DRAGON!"
Fluttershy rushes to Spike, barreling through Twilight in the process. Twilight is sent head first into a nearby tree and there's a loud thus as she hits the trunk of the tree. Twilight takes a moment to get up she looks a little unsteady as the world seems to spin around her.
"I think I might have brain damage. Spikes, could you take me to the hospital?"
Twilight collapses into the bush. Spike completely ignores Fluttershy in favor of rushing over to Twilight in order to try to get her to a hospital.
**********************
When Twilight wakes up she sees Spike and Fluttershy talking in the waiting chairs. It sounds like he's telling Fluttershy his life story while Twilight's trying to keep herself from abandoning this town. Eventually the doctor comes back and tells her that he fixed her up while she was out and that she's good to leave when she's ready. Twilight thanks him before walking over to Spike and Fluttershy. Twilight grabs Spike with her telekinesis and pulls him away from the mare, while glaring at her.
"Please stay away from me."
Twilight starts heading for the library with Spike in tow. The mare looks like she's about to cry but Twilight doesn't notice or care. She wants to go home and rest at the point. This town is wearing her patience razor thin.
**********************
"I can't believe the ponies in this town. They're all superficial idiots!"
Spike tries to calm Twilight down. He knew that she was starting to get a bit peeved with this town but he had no idea that it was getting this bad. He hopes that she'll be able to go through the rest of the day without blowing a gasket.
"At least they're nice."
Twilight is having none of it. This town can be overtaken by the Everfree forest at this point for all she cares. She hopes to never come back here ever again once she's done here. She might just have to take a break after this just to recover from how much pain she's been in, and this STUPID HEADACHE WON'T GO AWAY!
"Says the dragon who hasn't suffered severe head trauma, nearly ripped stomach, and broken bones."
When they get to the library the enter but all the lights are out. Twilight sighs and she starts looking around for a light switch. Things seem to just be getting worse and worse.
"Great, now I've got to find the lights."
Suddenly the lights are turned on with the accompaniment of an ear shattering "SURPRISE!!!" from lots of ponies who've managed to squeeze into the library. Twilight is blinded by the sudden flash and deafened by the shout. She takes a moment to let her eyes come back to clarity and her ears to stop ringing. When she see's all of the ponies in her library she just about looses it, and just barely manages to keep herself from completely loosing her cool.
"OW! What the heck?!"
Suddenly the pink pony from before appears. She's got a massive smile on her face and she gets really close to Twilight. Maybe it's just the energy of the pony but Twilight starts sweating and she can feel all of the other ponies eyes on her. All of them just looking at her.
"HiI'mPinkiePieandIthrewthispartyjustforyou.Wereyousurprised?Wereyou?Wereyou?"
Twilight's rage reaches a boiling point. This is it. She is completely done with this entire's town's bullshit. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. For a split second Twilight's mane and tail light on fire.
"GET OUT!!!"
Twilight uses her magic and suddenly all the party goers and supplies are outside with a flash of purple light. Twilight walks over to the door and slams it shut before locking it. Without the party stuffs the library is relatively large. It's no Canterlot library but it's got a few books and has a nice natural style. Pinkie Pie somehow gets back in.
"Now what'd you go and do that for?"
Twilight's already thin patience is being run even thinner by this strange pink pony who insists on defying the laws of physics.
"I just want some peace and quiet, so get out before I throw your out."
Pinkie Pie gives a lighthearted smile. It's as if she doesn't notice the fact that she's making Twilight angrier the longs she stays in the library.
"Okay."
Pinkie Pie leaves. Twilight looks at the time to see that it's 23:35 (11:35 P.M.).
"Oh no! Now It's too late to do anything about Nightmare Moon!"
Spike puts a comforting hand on Twilight's shoulder. He knows that doing research about the mare in the moon meant a lot to Twilight, but he's glad that she has some time to rest before the celebration tomorrow. Even he has to admit that this town's been pretty intense for a more who really doesn't like being around other ponies.
"Just relax Twilight. Even if it's true I'm sure Celestia can handle her."
Twilight looks at the clock very worried before turning back to Spike. She doesn't know what she'd do without him. She smiles a little bit as Spike's reassurance cools her temper a bit.
"I hope you're right Spike. Because if not we're in big trouble."
Spike looks confidently on as he starts walking deeper into the library. Twilight follows after him, just so tired that she can barely walk after today.
"Celestia will raise the sun in a few hours so you might want to get some rest."
Twilight nods in agreement. Some rest sounds like a great idea. After all of the walking and interacting, and healing she did she needs a few hours to sleep and recharge before she just completely passes out on the floor.
"Sounds great. See you in a little bit."
Twilight and Spike head to bed for the rest of the night. Twilight finds their room quickly and there's already a large bed for her to sleep in. She walks over to it and absolutely collapses, not able to even pull the blanket over her as she falls deeply into sleep. Spike smiles and pulls the covers over her before making a temporary bed out of soft things in the room and letting himself rest.
**********************
In a few hours Twilight wakes up from her sleep. She had a pleasant dream about a library with infinite books but she has to wake up so when it's time she comes back to the real world feeling invigorated and like her temper has been cut down to size. Plus her headache is almost completely gone. She walks to where Spike is sleeping and gently wakes him up for the celebration. Once they have everything they wanted to bring they go to the town hall to watch the sun rise. Everything starts off normally with lots of ponies, the beautiful decorations, and the bird choir all ready to perform. The mayor (mare) of the town takes to podium and begins to speak. She's a brown pony with a gray mane and a scroll cutie mark.
"Mares and stallions. As mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of the summer sun celebration."
The crowd breaks into cheering. Twilight can see in the crowd all the ponies she met today. she does her best to avoid them so that she doesn't have to deal with them right now. However as the night goes on her headache starts slowly coming back with a vengeance. The mayor continues her speech as Twilight winces in pain.
"In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year. And now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and everyday, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria, Princess Celestia."
The bird choir starts up and Rarity pulls the curtain to reveal...
...nothing.
Everypony gasps in shock and starts looking around the room, trying to find Celestia. Even Twilight is shocked to see that Celestia isn't hear. The mayor sees that the crowd is freaking out and she tries to get everyponies' attention.
"Remain calm everypony. I'm sure she's just in the bathroom or at the bakery."
Suddenly Pinkie Pie gasps as a strange dark blue miasma starts swirling on the stage. Twilight gasps as her headache becomes worse than ever before. she's forced to the ground as the pain overtakes her and she can barely hold back a scream of pain.
"Oh no."
The miasma condenses into the form of a dark alicorn with strange armor and jagged teeth. Her fur is pitch black and her eyes are reptilian and blue. He main and tail are a dark blue ethereal and have numerous starts dotting them. As the alicorn moves around the mane seems to move to her whims.
"Oh my beloved subjects. It's been so long since I've seen your pathetic sun loving faces."
Rainbow flies above the crowd with a glare on her face. She points her hoof accusingly at the alicorn and looks like she's ready for a fight.
"What have you done with our princess?!"
Rainbow tries to charge at the mare but is held back by Applejack holding onto her tail. Rainbow tries to fight it but she can't escape the cowgirl's jaws and just hovers closer to her. The strange alicorn laughs at Rainbow's challenging town and looks down on her.
"Why, am I not royal enough for you? Don't you know who I am? Does my crown no longer count now that I've been imprisoned for 1000 years!? Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?!"
Twilight steps out of the crowd, barely able to stand because of the pain. However she holds herself up with the help of Spike holding her up. She glares at Nightmare Moon through her wince of pain. Just walking closer causes the headache to increase in strength exponentially.
"I did, and I know who you are. You're the Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon."
Nightmare starts mumbling to herself. This strange mare knows who she is. And yet despite that and her apparent extreme pain, she still insists on standing to defy her.
"Never did like that title. It always seemed like the moon part sounded weird."
Nightmare shakes her head when she realizes that she's rambling. She need to make a display to get this pony to back down or she won't be able to impose herself on these ponies.
"Never mind. It seems as though somepony remembers me. Then you know what I'm here."
Twilight mumbles something incomprehensible as the headache making it hard to come up with anything beyond the basest retorts. Nightmare gives a hearty laugh at Twilight's state. She looks like she's about to collapse at any moment.
"HAH! Oh sweet mercy that was funny."
Pinkie Pie also laughs despite herself. She has to admit that Black Snooty's laugh is pretty infectious. Nightmare composes herself and continues her address to the ponies below her.
"Remember this day little ponies, for it will be your last. From this moment forth, the night shall last forever."
At that statement Twilight looses all pretense of fear and gives Nightmare a deadpan stare as her true intelligence manages to pierce through the pain wreaking her body.
"You're still going with that?"
Nightmare looks at Twilight quizzically. She could have sworn that this pony was incapable of a decent retort a moment ago, but she seems to actually be rather intelligent. Who is this mare? No, it could be a fluke. She needs to make sure.
"What do you mean?"
Twilight sighs as she tries to compose herself in the face of the pulsing heartbeat in her head. It takes a moment of sweating and concentration to finally compose a responce.
"You're still going to cause eternal night? That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard. I know that you think that ponies will like your night of you force it on them but that's dumb as well."
Nightmare growls. She doesn't seem as intelligent as she thought. What a shame. She doesn't have time for this. She needs to prepare for battle while she still has the chance. Her mane starts to swirl around her as she glares down at the ponies again.
"I've no more time to play the games with you, pony."
Mayor points a hoof at Nightmare and two royal guards stand at attention, ready for orders.
"Don't let her escape! Only she knows where the princess is."
Three royal guards charge at Nightmare with their weapons drawn. Suddenly an aura envelopes Nightmare and the guards are sent flying back by two blots of lightning. When this happens Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Applejack all wince in pain from the strange headache, but most of all Twilight. Nightmare becomes a miasma of dark blue aura and flies away into the Everfree forest. When she leaves Twilight's headache passes away completely and all that's left is that aftermath.
**********************
As soon as everypony is evacuated out of the town hall and to their homes, Twilight starts running to the library with Spike in search of anything that could be useful. They get to the library and the both start searching through the bookshelves furiously in search of any kind useful information.
"Ugh, why did I think this hamlet had anything on the Elements of Harmony?!"
Suddenly Twilight is interrupted by an all too familiar and unwelcome blue blur resulting in a cyan pony in her face. Rainbow Dash hovers above the ground right in Twilight's face eliciting a grimace out of the purple mare. Both of them seem very mad.
"And just what are the Elements of Harmony?! And how did YOU know about Nightmare moon?! Are you a spy?!"
Rainbow is suddenly pulled back by Applejack pulling on her tail again. Rainbow gives Applejack a glare before turning away from her to keep her eyes on Twilight.
"Simmer down Sally. She ain't no spy, but she sure known what's going on. Don't you Twilight."
Everypony Twilight met was in the library and the memories were not inspiring confidence in her that these ponies were to be trusted. However she doesn't want to be labeled a spy so she decides to tell them what she knows. Twilight puts some books back on the self as she explains.
"I read about the Elements and Nightmare from a couple of my books. You should try it some time. Currently I'm looking for a book about them but it could be titled anything so I don't know where to look."
Pinkie pulls a book off of a random shelf and presents it To Twilight with a smile.
"Try this. It's 'Elements of Harmony, a reference guide'."
Twilight takes a moment to marvel at the fact that this random pink pony was some how able to find that book right away. She recovers quickly and opens the book and starts reading through it.
"How could a dinky little library like this have one of the most valuable books in Equestria?!"
Pinkie laughs at Twilight's confusion as she bounces back over to the other mares.
"Plot convenience."
Twilight gives her a blank stare. What the hell could she mean by that?
"What?"
Pinkie moves next to Twilight and wraps her hoof around Twilight's shoulders.
"I'll tell you later when Equestria's not in trouble."
Twilight groans in annoyance and pushes Pinkie Pie off of her while she starts trying to find anything directly relevant to the current situation in the book.
"Whatever."
Twilight eventually finds a passage that could actually be helpful right now. She starts reading out loud from the book.
"There are currently six elements of harmony,* and only five of those are remembered. They are: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Loyalty. It is said that the last known location of the Elements is the Castle of the two sisters, where they were lost in the battle with nightmare moon. The castle currently resides in the Everfree forest."
**********************
Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy walk up to the Everfree forest. Twilight can't help but notice that the other five ponies are scared out of their wits and wonders why they decided t follow her out here. They have good reason to be scared though. The forest is packed to the brim with distorted trees and strange ominous plant life. Not to mention it's filled with dangerous monsters that most ponies would never want to be anywhere near.
"Why are you scared of this place? Wait, better question is what are you doing here?"
Rainbow looses her fear as if it were nothing when facing Twilight. She can't just let her question her bravery.
"We can't leave a friend behind."
However when Rainbow is done talking and looks back at the forest she gulps nervously. Applejack also gets a sudden brave streak as she walks over to Twilight and stares down the forest.
"And ain't no trees gonna scare us away."
Twilight sighs at these ponies. She can't tell if they don't know what they're doing or if they just have something really wrong. While Twilight is wondering that the other ponies enter the forest as if it were any other natural park. Spike pats Twilight on the back as he starts walking towards the entrance as well.
"Don't worry Twilight. I'm sure they can handle whatever's in there."
Twilight is looks worried for these ponies safety. Every since waking up her temper has been cut and now it's being replaced with a hope that these other ponies will be okay..
"I hope you're right Spike. For their sake at least."
Twilight and Spike enter the forest, catching up to the others as they begin their trek into the dangerous forest after the unknown artifacts.
**********************
The six ponies and one dragon continue down the path in search of the castle. The book said that it was in the Everfree forest but that could mean anything at this point since the book is so old. he best they can doo is follow the path and hope that they'll be able to find it along the path. They eventually come to a cliff with a several story drop down. Twilight looks at the others as they continue to walk along.
"So none of you have been here before?"
Rarity is trying to keep her mane from the plant life and failing a little bit as the occation tree branch with catch her main and tug on it.
"Heavens no. Just look at it. It's dreadful."
Applejack looks at the plants with worry. Just being in this place is filling her with dread. But she grins and bears it because she has to do this for her friends.
"And it ain't natural. Ponies say it don't work the same as Equestria."
Twilight looks confused by that statement. She'd done a bit of research into the Everfree since it's such a large part of Equestria, but it was mostly historical so she didn't know how the forest actually works.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Rainbow walks out of a shadow menacingly, waving her hooves in a vaguely menacing fashion like she was trying to scare the lot of them.
"Noooo pony knooows. You know why?"
Applejack tries to get Rainbow to stop. She glares at Rainbow and walks over to her intent to give her a good talking to.
"Enough Rainbow."
Rainbow ignores her and just keeps up the spooky act, despite the face that it only really seems to be spooking Fluttershy.
"'Cause every pony who's ever come in, has never come OUT!!!"
Fluttershy jumps with a tiny yelp and hides behind Pinkie Pie while Twilight sighs in annoyance. This whole bit is starting to wear thin. There's no time for these shenanigans.
"If nobody comes out then how do they know it's unnatural?"
Suddenly the cliff they were standing on collapses with a loud crash. Rainbow and Fluttershy save Pinkie and Rarity by flyong over to them and grabbing them as they slide down the cliff side. Spike uses his claws to dig into the side of the rock and slow his decent. He stops and digs into the rock to create hand and foot holds as he climbs down. Applejack grabs onto a vine with her mouth and grits her teeth as the lest than optimal deceleration hurts her neck. However Twilight slides all the way down to the edge of the cliff and hangs onto the edge for dear life. Applejack lets go of the vine and slides down slowly and carefully to Twilight slowly and starts trying to pull her up.
"HOLY MOTHER OF MERCY!!! HELP ME!!! I CAN'T GET BACK UP!!!"
Applejack looks around, trying to looks for a way to get out of this. She sees that Rainbow has set Pinkie down at the bottom of the drop and smiles whens eh sees her coming back up hear with Fluttershy
"Ya don't need to. Rainbow Dash is coming to get you. You'll be just fine."
Twilight looks at Applejack as if she was a madmare. That Rainbow is the mare she started a lawsuit with and is also the mare that broke her ribs in the first place. Why would she trust that mare with her well being?
"What is wrong with you?! If I let go I'll die! I can't trust her!"
Applejack looks at Twilight sadly. She doesn't know what happened between the two of them, but right now she needs to get Twilight yo understand that Rainbow isn't the kind of pony who wouldn't let any harm come to her.
"Twilight, I don't know what happened between you two and ah don't care. What matters right now is that you trust me. Rainbow isn't a vindictive mare. Whatever happened between you two, I can guarantee that If you let go she will catch you."
Twilight Looks at AJ, and is an instant is filled with a pure kind of clarity. The kind you get when your entire being is committed to something, and she lets go. She falls for a second before being caught by Rainbow who lowers her darn to the ground. Twilight is amazed that even after their sour interaction that Rainbow would still do that for her. Fluttershy helps Applejack down the ground and the group continues their trek deeper into the forest.
**********************
After a few minutes of walking they reach a narrow gorge. As they start walking through it they hear a loud roar from behind the rock and all look deeper into the pass to try to see what's there. At the end of the gorge there's a large manticore blocking the path. The manticore was at least three times their size with yellow fur, a red mane, and a red scorpion tail. Twilight steps back in shock.
"We have to get past it."
All the ponies and Spike charge at the creature except Fluttershy. As they get closer the manticore also starts to move towards them, but with a barely perceptible limp.
"Wait."
Rainbow starts of the fight by swirling around the manticore. She flies so fast around the monster that it leaves a rainbow coloroed blur trial behind her as she flies in circles. How this only gets her swatted by the blunt part of its tail. Fluttershy tries raising her voice.
"Wait."
Applejack pulls a lasso from somewhere and tries to lasso the manticore. She manages to get onto the manticore but is them promptly thrown off when it thrashes its head. Fluttershy tries harder to get everypony's attention.
"Wait."
They all try to gang up on the manticore but are blocked by Fluttershy when she suddenly gets between them and the manticore.
"WAIT!"
Everypony stops as the recognize Fluttershy blocking their way. Once she's made sure that nopony will stop her, she walks over to the manticore and starts looking it over. It growls at her but she just walks over to it and nuzzles one of it's paws. The manticore looks her over for a moment before it whines and reveals the pad of one of its paws has a rather large thorn in it. Fluttershy sees the thorn and gives the manticore a look of pity. She bites into the thorn and pulls the thorn out of the paw pad which causes the manticore to roar in pain. The others try to save Fluttershy but it just turns out to be the manticore showing gratitude to Fluttershy. The manticore walks away, happy to not get involved any further. Twilight is befuddled by this series of events.
"How could you have known about the thorn?"
Fluttershy walks by her and follows the rest of the group as they start up their walk again.
"I didn't. Sometimes it pays to show others some kindness."
**********************
The group continues forward and the walk into a part of the forest that is so dense that they can't see where they're going. After a little bit of doing their best not to get separated, the darkness suddenly clears to reveal trees with scary faces, and that's it. There's no combat, danger, or even real horror. it's just a bunch of trees with silly faces. The only ones not screaming in fright are Twilight, Spike, and Pinkie. Twilight looks at them with a perturbed glare.
"Why are you all screaming?"
Everypony starts panicking except for the previously mentioned three. They all look like they're about to run for their lives, but Pinkie starts laughing at the trees. Twilight becomes nonplussed at Pinkies actions.
"What are you doing?"
Pinkie starts moving to an unheard rhythm in her head while Twilight continues to not understand what's going on.
"Oh girls, don't you see? When I was a little-"
Twilight closes Pinkie's mouth with her magic. While she's clad that Pinkies little laugh was able to keep the group from having simultaneous heart attacks, now is not the time for a long song.
"No."
**********************
Eventually after another long while of walking they come to a raging river. It's obvious that they won't be able to cross it by swimming. Twilight teleports Applejack and Pinkie across, Rainbow and Fluttershy fly over, but rarity stays for some reason. Twilight looks at Rarity across the river and yells in order to be heard over the rushing water.
"Come on Rarity."
Rarity is about to acknoledge Twilight's call but she looks in a direction up the river as if she heard something in that direction.
"Do you hear that?"
They all listen and sure enough they hear someone crying. Rarity start walking over in that direction and she sees a large serpent crying. Everypony else follows her on the other side of the river and they're all amazed when they see that giant creature is what's causing the river to go crazy. Rarity walks over to the serpent and starts trying to get its attention. The serpent is very large, with stylized ginger hair and polished purple scales. It also looks like he had a mustache but half of it was torn off shoddily with just brute strength. Rarity looks at the misshapen facial hair with sadness.
"Um, sir? What happens to be the matter?"
The serpent stops crying for a moment when it hears the voice. It takes a second but he manages to find the pony talking to him from below him. He manages to stop crying for a moment but the tears keep flowing freely.
"I was sitting here, minding my own business, when all of a sudden something tore off part of my mustache! And now I look simply horrid!"
Rarity gasps is utter shock. To think that anything would dark to harm such a fabulous mustache is absolutely incomprehensible to her. How could anything have the gall to do something so terrible.
"What a tragedy! Especially with such luminescent scales."
The serpent's eyes clear a little as Rarity starts to stroke his ego.
"I know."
Rarity starts looking him over, absolutely loving how stylish his hair is, She wishes she knew how he was able to do it because his ginger hair is perfectly style for what would be his mustache if it wasn't damaged. Just thinking about it hurts Rarity in her fashion sense.
"And expertly coiffed mane."
The serpent stops crying again, happy that someone out here in this drab forest has the sense to notice the effort her puts into his appearance.
"Oh, I know, I know."
Rarity smiles, glad that she is able to relieve this serpent of his sorrows, if even for a moment. His looks are almost completely perfect for him.
"And that manicure is simply to die for."
The serpents smiles as well. This has to be the best conversation he's had in a long time. To think that there was another creature in this forest who could appreciate his looks.
"It's so truuue."
Rarity frowns when she realizes she had a point to make. He mane, his nails, his scales are almost completely perfect, if it just wasn't for...
"All ruined without your mustache."
The serpent stops stroking his own ego in his head when Rarity reminds him of his one great momentary flaw. He quickly starts bawling again.
"It's true! I'm hideous!"
Rarity becomes determined to fix this. She even thinks that she might just have a plan in order to fix this for the better.
"I simply cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected."
She suddenly rips a scale off of the serpent and uses it to cut off her own tail. After the serpent recovers from a dramatic swoon at the sight of someone as fabulous as him desecrating their own looks, Rarity attaches the tail to the serpent's mustache and uses a spell to make it look like the other side. The serpent starts beaming when he sees that his mustache is back to normal.
"My mustache! How WONDERFUL!"
Rarity looks sad about her tail but gets over it when she sees how happy the serpent is. She was able to help him out and she can probably make her tail look good when they get back, hopefully.
"You look simply smashing."
The serpent bows gracefully. He can't believe that anyone, especially somepony like her would sacrifice so much for someone who they just met.
"Allow me to repay my debt."
The water calms and he raises his tail so that Rarity can use it to cross. She rejoins her friend with grace and they all start walking again, with Rarity only occasionally glancing at her tail while Twilight looks at her once before, looking back to the path, wondering about her judgement of these ponies.
**********************
Our intrepid heroines (and Spike) eventually come across a chasm that blocks the way to the ruins. However at first the chasm is concealed by a thick fog which is also hiding a rope bridge. From the outside the castle looks very decrepit with an entire half of a tower missing. Twilight sighs in relief.
"Finally, we can be done with this."
Twilight walks towards the castle but then suddenly there's no more ground beneath her hooves and falls into the chasm. Before she can fall too far she teleports back onto the ridge and takes a moment to try and make her life flashing before her eyes go away. Once she's recovered the fog clears to reveal the broken rope bridge.
"How annoying."
Twilight uses her magic to fix the bridge and they start to walk across. But then a thick fog rolls in and completely covers all of them. It's so thick that they're completely cut off from each other even though they were pretty close together when it rolled in. There's a snap and a voice echoes in RD's head.
"Kill them and I'll let you live."
Rainbow looks around but all she can see is fog. What kind of voice would tell her to kill her friends? What kind of sicko would even think of that?
"What the? Who's there?!"
The voice is like that of a snake slithering itself across the hills and valleys of Rainbow's grey matter, trying its best to coil and squeeze her brain with its words.
"They don't care about you. They'll betray you when you least expect it."
Rainbow However isn't taking any of this. She knows that her friend would never do that and if this voice is trying to get her to think that, then it has another thing coming.
"No they wont. They're my friends!"
However despite Rainbow confidence the voice continues to persist in Rainbow's head, still trying to slither its way into her thoughts.
"They're not really your friends. Remember how that purple one got you in trouble for practicing your favorite stunt."
Rainbow has to think about that one. It's true that she was pretty reckless, but the purple mare was seriously injured because of her. She had a right to be angry.
"She was right. I do need to be more careful."
The voice becomes warmer, seeing that the offensive approach doesn't seem to be working it decides to try a different way in.
"I can help you achieve your goals without them and I won't betray you. All you have to do is kill them."
Rainbow brings out all her will power to bear. It's obvious even to her that if this voice thinks that she'll believe it's words even after all that its said, then it's doesn't have her best at heart.
"NEVER!"
The voice deteriorates as it goes away, finally admitting defeat. Maybe not now, but soon enough it will have its chance.
"suit yourself."
The voice stops and the fog clears. Twilight walks over to Rainbow with a look of worry on her face. She was so completely lost in that fog. She hopes that everypony else is doing alright. She heard muffled shouting but she couldn't make any of it out.
"Rainbow, are you alright? I heard shouting."
Rainbow holds her head high and gives Twilight a look of great confidence as she reflects her encounter with the strange voice.
"I'm better than alright. Don't worry Twilight, I'll keep you safe no matter what?"
Twilight is just confused as she watches Rainbow follow the rest of them towards the castle. She wonders why she just told that to Twilight like she accomplished some great feat.
"What?"
**********************
They quickly reach the main doors of the old castle of the two sisters. The open the door and reach the main room of the castle without any trouble. From the inside the castle doesn't look as decrepit but it would still be a good idea to finish soon, lest the castle get raised to the ground. There's a statue with stone spheres on it and each sphere has a gem symbol carved into it, but there's only five. A plaque on the statue reads in old ponish "Elements of Harmony." Twilight levitates the stone spheres down and starts trying to work with them, prodding them with magic and seeing how they react. Everypony except Spike leaves. Spike just silently watches from the side as Twilight does her work. However suddenly the Elements start levitating into the air towards a strange black hole. Twilight and Spike leap in after them, falling into the hole as well. When Twilight's friends return they find her missing and start searching the castle for her as quickly as they can.
**********************
Twilight, Spike, and the elements appear with a flash in another part of the castle where Nightmare Moon is. Nightmare is in the middle of the room and turns to see Twilight and Spike enter through her black hole along with the Elements. The room is very rectangular with a door at one end and some windows on the other. It actually looks like the throne room in Canterlot from what Twilight can remember of the last tie she was there. She looks surprised to see Twilight and Spike.
"What are you doing here?"
Twilight needs to take a moment to recover from the teleport, but when she does she gasps in shock when she sees Nightmare Moon with the Elements of Harmony near her. Adrenaline starts pumping through her veins as she quickly comes up with a plan to try to get the elements away from Nightmare Moon. However to her displeasure her headache starts coming back the longer she spends with Nightmare Moon. She stands up and starts dragging her hoof in front of her as if she were about to charge Nightmare Moon as magic starts to gather in her horn.
"You're kidding. You're kidding, right?"
Twilight charges at Nightmare who just stands there. However while she was focused on Twilight, Spike climbed up a rafter to the ceiling and when Twilight charges at Nightmare Moon Spike leaps down onto her from the ceiling and starts trying to claw at her. Twilight teleports behind Nightmare who bucks her in the stomach sending her flying. She then thrashes her head around and flings spike off of her and towards Twilight. Twilight and Spike land near the doorway and start trying to get back up.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing? I bet you don't even know what you're fighting for."
Twilight wonders why Nightmare Moon would say something like that. However those thoughts die when she hears the sounds of her friends coming from the hallway. That's when everything suddenly starts clicking for her, and all of the pain just fades away as she's filled with perfect clarity.
"You're wrong Nightmare, I'm fighting for Equestria, Celestia, and..."
Nightmare looks incredibly annoyed at the purple unicorn's strange pause. Is she actually pausing for dramatic effect, right now? In the middle of a fight?
"Please tell me you're kidding this time and you're not actually going to go into some kind of speech about valor or something."
Twilight looks at Nightmare with a smug smile as she and Spike stand up triumphantly. She can feel pure energy filling her veins as she can feel all of the puzzle pieces coming together so easily it seems like it should have been obvious.
"...my friends!"
All of her friends enter and stand beside her. Almost all of them looks like they're ready for a fight. Ever Fluttershy looks like she isn't about to just pass out from just looking at Nightmare Moon.
"Don't worry I'll make it short. We are the elements of harmony, plus the newest one. Spike: the element of Dependability. The power was deep inside of us. That's why I could feel the connection between us. Prepare to lose."
The element spheres suddenly disappear from around Nightmare Moon and appear near the seven of them, A well as seventh sphere. They levitate into the air and the rocks turn into element jewelry. The jewels teleport onto them and the friendship cannon fires. A massive beam of rainbow energy coalesces from the jewels and rockets its way towards the middle of the room. This was going to be their story. They were going to have lots of fun and adventures. But if you haven't noticed, things are different this time around. Oh there's still going to be fun and adventures, but these ponies and their dragon friend aren't the only main characters. The real main character...
When the light clears, a strange creature is standing in the middle of the room between Nightmare and the elements.
...is him.
Author's Note
*dated 00/00/0050 A.L. (After Luna)
Please criticize, a lot.
Please note that the story in subject to minor changes if a good argument can be put forward.
[Equestria P.O.V.]
Twilight and her friends were blinded by the bright rainbow light but finally they're able to see again after a couple of second. What they saw confused them very much. Standing in the middle of the room was a strange bipedal creature wearing strange clothing and having no fur except for on what she could only assume was its head. The fur was black and in a shape that looks like somepony put a bowl on the creature's head. The exposed skin was a very pale tan. It's arms ended in strange wiggly things. The creature didn't match the description of any known beast in Equestria. However the strangest part to anypony who couldn't sense magic is that the creature is glowing a hot white. But to Twilight, Nightmare Moon, and to a lesser extent Rarity, they all saw the full picture. And it scared the ever living hell out of them. This creature, whatever it is, is filled to the brim with unheard of amounts of magic. It's so completely saturated that it looks like it could explode if they aren't careful. Twilight looks behind the creature to see that Nightmare Moon was completely intact.
"Oh no."
Nightmare Moon eye's widen and her jaw goes slack when she feels the energy brought to bear by the creature. But then she sees its face. It's eyes are wide and it's shaking. And then a thought hits her. This thing is scared. She smiles as she plans to take advantage of this.
"Is this the best that the Elements could come up with? Strange creature, who are you?"
[Shigeo P.O.V.]
Shigeo is really starting to freak out. This entire place is so absolutely foreign to him. He can't understand anything of what's going on here. When he feels the menacing energy of the large black horse he takes a step away from it. It looks like there's a lot of energy in there.
'What the? What is this place? Where am I? What are these creatures?! Why is that one so big?!'
Suddenly Shigeo hears Nightmare ask him his name. These things can talk? Wait, if he just suddenly appeared here, maybe the reason its energy feels so dark is because it's scared. Shigeo keeps trying to keep his energy under control as he answers the question, not sure what it means by elements.
"Shigeo, Shigeo Kageyama."
Nightmare glares at Shigeo with less than pure intentions in mind. Whatever this creature is, it was summoned by the Elements of Harmony, meaning it's a threat to her. She must proceed quickly but cautiously.
"Why are you here?"
Shigeo grits his teeth more as the energy inside of him slowly tries to make its way out of him. He keeps forcing it down as he answers the black horse's question.
"I don't know."
Nightmare Moon sneers at him. Is this creature kidding with her right now?! Why would the Elements summon something that doesn't know why's it's been summoned?! This has to be some kind of ploy.
"What?! How could you not know?! Whatever, it doesn't matter now."
In a burst of speed faster than most in the room could track Nightmare Moon appears to vanish and then reappear behind Shigeo. Shigeo can see her for the most part however and tries to create a barrier, but with his focus mostly on containing his energy the barrier fails and Nightmare Moon bucks Shigeo through a wall with a loud crash, destroying said wall. Shigeo pulls himself out of the hole in the wall and stands up, despite the fact that right now he's in some serious pain.
"Wait, please don't. You don't know what you're doing. I could explode if I don't keep this energy under control."
The elemental 7 evacuate the castle and Nightmare blasts Shigeo with a beam of magic not only hurting him, but also destroying a large section of the wall behind him. Shigeo is brought to his knees and he coughs up some blood. Adrenaline fills his veins anew as the realization of what this large black horse is trying to do hits him like a truck.
'This pony...'
Suddenly the ground begins to shake as the fear begins to mix the energy Shigeo was holding in with his own, merging the two of them together. Shigeo makes another barrier to try and protect himself. This one is supercharged with the two energies.
'...wants to kill me. She only just met me but she's trying to kill me.'
Nightmare attacks with a flurry of magically charged "punches". Shigeo starts panicking even more as he can feel her energy pressing against his barrier. As Nightmare Moon keeps punching the shield she notices that it's much stronger than the first one was. She can feel the energy building up inside of him so she doubles her output, trying to end Shigeo before he can end her. Suddenly a large out flux of power emanates from Shigeo as he dives into the deepest depths of terror. The wave of energy sends Nightmare Moon flying away from him and it breaks apart the castle and the pieces start floating in the air. The entire castle even starts to float into the sky. Nightmare Moon pushes back against the power but it hopelessly outclassed and can only soften her blow against the walls of the flying castle.
"How is this possible?! What are you?!"
Shigeo looks up at her with his fear evident in his eye.
"Please don't do this. I don't want to hurt you."
Nightmare glances at him curiously. What on Equestria is he talking about? He doesn't want to hurt her? That's what he was brought here to do. His lies won't fool her.
"You don't want to hurt me? I don't think I've ever heard such a bold faced lie in my life. I won't let you take away everything that I've earned!"
Nightmare makes an attempt to punch Shigeo again but Shigeo extends an arm forward in defense. When he does a powerful wave of energy washes throughout the floating ruins, creating a blinding light. When the light clears the castle is back to the way it was. The elementals enter the castle again when everything looks like it's not going to explode anymore. Twilight can also sense that the energy of the creature from before is a lot less than it was when it first arrived. When they get to the room that they started in they see Shigeo standing in the middle of the room, bleeding and barely standing. He's also no longer glowing white and grimacing in pain. He's just looking down, confused at the other thing in the room with him: a normal sized blue alicorn laying on the ground unconscious. Twilight looks around.
"What just happened?"
A voice emanates seemingly from the ether as the sun finally rises from beyond the horizon. Everyone has to shield their eyes at the sudden intrusion of the sunlight. Twilight and Spike recognize that voice and they both smile when they hear it. All Shigeo knows is that another source of a lot of power is moving towards them rapidly. He puts up a barrier just in case this one also wants to fight.
"I believe I can help you understand that."
A ball of light moves the a nearby window and out of it walks princess Celestia completely unharmed. Everypony bows except Twilight and Spike. Shigeo looks the creature over. It kind of looks like the black one, but white instead of black. It's energy is also a lot warmer than the black one's so hopefully it won't attack him. Twilight and Spike run over to Celestia and they both hug her tightly.
"Celestia, you're okay! We were so worried about you!"
Celestia looks at Twilight with an expression of motherly love and slight humor. She's glad that her star pupil is alright. However she can't help but notice the other creature in the room and that massive burst of power just before she felt the Nightmare disappear. Shigeo sees the large white horse giving him the stink eye but she doesn't do anything beyond that so Shigeo starts trying to relax a little bit. He lowers his barrier since it doesn't seem like there will be any more fighting. Celestia sees this but she doesn't relax in the slightest.
"Of course Twilight. And I new that you could achieve your goal. However, for right now, I need to figure out what happened and what that creature is."
Twilight immediately turns her attention to Shigeo as well while Spike backs away a little bit. She's also curious as to what this strange creature that's standing over the blue alicorn could be and how it could be so powerful.
"He's the one who defeated Nightmare Moon. The Elements of Harmony summoned him. At first it felt like he was brimming with energy but after we escaped from the ruins after Nightmare Moon tried to kill him there was a large explosion of power and suddenly not only was everything was back to normal, but we found him standing there over that blue alicorn."
Celestia looks at Shigeo and walks over to him. As she gets close Shigeo doesn't even flinch where as others would usually bow or try to flee from the goddess of the sun. She can't tell if he's just so powerful that he doesn't care for her own power, or if he just doesn't recognize her own power.
"Is it true what my student tells me? Did you defeat Nightmare Moon?"
Shigeo looks up at the large horse since she's a lot taller than him. He's glad that this one isn't attacking him as well. He thinks that the purple pony called her Celestia? He hopes that he doesn't mess that name up.
"U-um, I think so? She tried to kill me, so I defended myself. I just don't understand why she attacked me."
Celestia looks at him with a small bit of pity. Whoever this creature is, he clearly doesn't know what's going on and he's very far from wherever his home is.
"I have no intention of hurting you. I must thank you for defeating such a great evil."
Celestia's gaze turns to that of hatred and Shigeo can feel her aura flaring up at him in an attempted display of dominance. Shigeo takes a step back and gets ready just in case this turns into another fight.
"But if you step out of line I will not hesitate to end you."
Shigeo gasps and Twilight looks at Celestia confused. When Celestia is done threatening Shigeo her aura dies back down while Twilight walks over to her so that she can question what's going on.
"Celestia, he saved us. Why would he try to hurt us?"
Celestia regains her demeanor and turns to Twilight, but she never takes her eyes off of Shigeo. Shigeo would also like to know what's going on? Are all of the large horses in this place just really mean like, Nightmare Moon (?) was? Celestia gets really close to Twilight's ear to whisper her answer to her pupil.
"It's not wise to trust beings of great power. The moment they find a reason to betray you they will not hesitate to stab you in the back."
Twilight looks between Celestia and Shigeo, seemingly torn by her mentor's words. Celestia walks over to the blue alicorn. Shigeo starts moving in that direction as well. Every member of the elementals (and Shigeo) notice something flickering on the alicorn's back. Celestia kneels by the alicorn and she starts to stir.
"Luna, it has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this."
Luna gasps as she awakens, her eyes flicking around the room, seeing all of the ponies standing around her and trying to comprehend what she's seeing. When her eyes land on Shigeo and Celestia they hyper focus on those two. Celestia continues her little spiel as if she had rehearsed it beforehand.
"It's time for us to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together little sister."
Everyone gasps except for Twilight and Spike who already knew, and Shigeo who is currently inspecting the strange thing on Luna's back. It appears to be some kind of black flame, but it's covered in TV static. He remembers that Reigen had something like this once. Celestia continues still.
"Will you accept my friendship?"
Luna glares at Celestia with intense hatred in her eyes which become reptilian once again. Everyone takes a step back when they see that except for Shigeo, who isn't paying attention too much.
"No. I can never accept you after what you did to me!"
Celestia looks confused at that statement, like something went wrong. Shigeo comes back to reality when Luna shouts at Celestia and when he sees the reptilian eyes he hopes this won't become another fight. Celestia holds her ground and looks down at her sister with intensity.
"What do you mean?"
Luna gets up weakly, doing her best to use what little energy she has left at her disposal to power her limbs so that she can stand once again.
"You know exactly what I mean. All the hatred and malice your subjects had towards me. And you never listened to me, you just ignored me! I spent several years thinking the statue in the court yard was my real sister! And yet a thousand years later and you still can't see that. I tried to talk to you but you ignored me still. We are past the time for friendship!"
Celestia looks at Luna in disbelief. The rest present all look at Celestia with confusion. What is Luna talking about? Celestia would never do anything so mean, would she? Shigeo is a bit more suspicious of Celestia when he hears that.
"Luna, I would never do such a thing."
Everypony hears Luna start growling at her sister and it sounds like the growl of a creature much larger than her.
"They why did I do all this?! Ponies doesn't just turn evil on a whim! What reason do I have other than what I said?!"
Shigeo starts putting a couple of the pieces together. Suddenly more and more of this is starting to make sense as more context is added. He walks over to the two of them and raises his hand to try to interject.
"I think I might know why."
Luna looks at him in fear and anger, wondering what this strange creature is still doing here now that she's been stripped of her power and utterly humiliated.
"And what might that be?"
Shigeo states his point simply and he points his finger at the strange black flame flickering on Luna's back.
"You're cursed."
Twilight walks over with an indignant look. She can't believe that this creature thinks that such superstitious nonsense is actually true.
"That's impossible. Curses don't exist."
Shigeo stares at her blankly as she says that what he's talking about isn't true. These creatures have a lot of energy in them, can they not see the flame on Luna's back?
"Am I the only one who can see this?"
He points at the black flame. Twilight looks where he's pointing and exactly on Luna's back where his finger is pointing and right there is something she's never seen before. A flickering black flame. She tilts her head in confusion as she tries to process what she's seeing.
"Wait, that's a curse?"
Shigeo nods in response. Twilight starts inspecting the curse on Luna's back. Luna tries to keep herself away from Twilight but she doesn't have enough energy left in her legs so she begrudgingly submits to the strange inspection.
"But how is this possible?"
Shigeo shrugs. He doesn't really know how curses works so he can't really answer her question.
"Someone must have not liked Luna a lot."
Twilight then turns her attention to Shigeo with a questioning look in her eye. There's just so much information entering her head at such a rapid pace that she's having trouble processing it.
"Wait a second, how do you know what it is?"
Shigeo looks at her as his expression slowly starts to soften. However as the adrenaline starts to leave his body he finally starts to feel the effects of all of the fighting he's been involved in. He winces as he takes a knee and starts pants for breath.
"W-well I dispelled a curse that someone had put on my master and it looked like that."
Twilight see Shigeo drop to his knee and she gasps as she finally gets a good look at him. He's seriously injured. She really hopes that they'll be able to fix him, but she notices Celestia and Luna giving him a stink eye and tries to think of a way to deflate the tension.
"How are we supposed to get it off?"
Celestia interrupts them with the same angry tone whenever she addresses Shigeo or anything he's said. She doesn't want this creature doing anything to her sister.
"Hold on, what curse? I don't see anything. Twilight, this creature may be lying."
Twilight is confused by Celestia's statement. It's right there plain as day. What is she talking about
"Can't you see it? It looks like a black flame and it's on Luna's back."
Luna looks at he back curiously. To her it looks just as it did before she became Nightmare Moon. A shame in its own right, but there doesn't appear to be anything clinging to her back.
"I've been cursed? I see no flames."
While they're arguing about the curse, Shigeo tries to see if he can grab it. He succeeds and pulls the curse off of Luna's back. The others are too busy arguing to notice and the rest of the elementals are just completely dumbfounded by this sequence of events. The curse disappears as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight stop arguing. Luna regains some of her strength and steadies herself so that she can better stand up to her sister.
"Even if it were true, that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you. Also, need I mention your most recent offence?"
Twilight wonders what that means, but now that the tension on Shigeo's has been a bit dispersed, Twilight walks over to Shigeo and she tries to get him to use her as a support. He can't really move on his own so he puts his weight on her a bit. He's a bit lighter than he looks like he should feel. Twilight lifts him up and tries to keep him steady.
"What offence?"
Luna looks at Twilight, intent to shed as much light on her sister's despicable actions as she can.
"Do you know how the elements of harmony normally work?"
Twilight shakes her head. She didn't even know that they existed until yesterday. If Luna has information on how they work, then this could help her figure out how Shigeo works.
"No."
Luna's voice becomes that of a scholar. She speaks with compose that her tiny body wouldn't show that she has.
"The elements of harmony are powered by will. Specifically, what the user believes is right and wrong. Celestia knew you were the new elements and purposely groomed you to make it so that everything Celestia saw as wrong in me would be destroyed when I was hit by that beam."
Twilight looks skeptical. Does Luna really expect her to believe something so outlandish? Not only would something like that be impossible, if Celestia knew that Twilight was an element bearer, she would tell her, wouldn't she?
"If that was true then why is Shigeo here?"
Shigeo also wants to know what he's doing here. But more importantly he wants to know how he can get back home. Luna looks into the upper right of her eyes to think of a reason that actually makes sense.
"My best guess is that your personality is in such stark contrast to the others in your group that the elements needed a sort of mediator to settle the moral dispute. Though the one they chose appears to be quite peculiar. Immensely powerful without the will to strike me down. Instead he simply humiliated me."
Celestia glares at Shigeo. It's obvious she trusts him even less now. Luna starts walking away the best she can. Celestia stands up.
"Where are you going?"
Shigeo sees her walking away and his heart starts to beat a little bit faster. He needs to stop her so that he can ask her how to get home.
"Wait! How do I get home?"
Luna looks back just to say one final thing to the two of them.
"Shigeo, I'm sorry but I don't know how to send you home. It was only a guess as to why the elements summoned you. As for you Celestia, I'm going away from you. This isn't the last you've heard of me."
Luna walks out of the castle and no one has the heart to stop her. Celestia doesn't shed a single tear. She doesn't even look sad. Shigeo just stands there with his eyes wide as he slowly starts to understand what this means. He can't go home. Shigeo is filled with a deep, unimaginable sorrow. He would cry, he would scream, he might even lash out, but all he can to is do his best to stop the world from spinning as her passes out. The last thing he hears before the world goes back is Twilight calling out to him as he hits the floor.
**********************
An unknown amount of time later, Shigeo slowly starts to come to consciousness. He has to force his eyes open, but when he does he sees that he's in a hospital room. For a moment he thinks that maybe he's back in his home world, but then he tilts his head and sees Twilight sitting in one of the waiting chairs near his bed. Seeing her fills Shigeo with a deep and powerful sadness, but he can't let it out. He doesn't want to loose control and hurt her. All he can do is let the tears flow as he realizes that he's stuck here, far away from Ritsu and Reigen and his parents. Twilight looks up from her book and sees that Shigeo is crying when he looks at her and she jumps up from her seat.
"Shigeo, you're awake!"
She rushes over to him and hugs him close. She squeezes him tightly. Shigeo is a bit shocked to see Twilight doing this. He barely knows her and yet she seems so worried about him. Why is she doing this. Twilight breaks the hug and stands next to Shigeo's bed.
"How are you feeling?"
Shigeo looks down to the floor when she asks that. He feels terrible. He feels sad and angry that he's trapped here, but he can't show any of it.
"Terrible."
Twilight nods in understanding. She has to admit that if she was summoned to an unknown world, she'd be feeling pretty melancholic as well.
"I can see why. You're so far from home. Don't worry, I'll try to help you get back home."
Shigeo's eyes widen slightly in shock when he hears that. Why would she say that? Why is she being so nice to him?
"You'd really do that? Why?"
Twilight puts a hoof on Shigeo's shoulder reassuringly with a smile on her face. She hopes that she'll be able to keep her words, but right now she's sure that even if she fails she's going to do her damnedest to try.
"You saved my life and the lives of my friends. It's the least I could do to repay you. Now get some rest. You were really badly hurt."
Shigeo gives the smallest of smiles when Twilight says that. He gives a small nod as he closes his eyes again. He may be sad that he's far away from his family, but at least he's stuck somewhere that has someone who's willing to help him get home. If nothing else, it's nice to know that he made a new friend today.
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Author's Note
Please criticize.
