Tributes

Ten beams of light quickly shot at the young ponies. They all fell into an immediate, dreamless sleep. The monarch levitated Pipsqueak high above her head and, very efficiently, used her magic to snap one of his legs backwards. Everypony still conscious was subject to a very loud cracking noise. “What are you doing to our son?!” Pip’s parents screamed.

“Relax,” Luna assured, “I have no intention of harming your son. His fate will be decided by his own actions and how he fairs against the others in the forest.” She again revealed that sick, sadistic smirk before repeating the process with his other three legs. “You see,” she began, “I’m doing this to prevent any advantages the foals may have over one another.” Luna gently set the colt down. “Right now I’m using their pressure points to disable strength, magic, and flight.”

Before long, Twist, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Button Mash were also unknowingly deprived of their strength. Princess Luna then levitated Snails over. “Such a unique, albeit odd, physique. What a shame it is that he may not survive,” she sighed. Luna brought her horn to his and caused a flurry of alicorn magic to flow through the colt’s fragile, less effective unicorn magic. When she could no longer feel a trace of power in him, the princess set him back down. Picking up Snips, she smiled humorously. “This one, too - an interesting body type of which may aid him,” she observed. Snips lost his magic, and Sweetie Belle after him.

Complete silence surrounded Luna as she levitated both Featherweight and Scootaloo into the air. She cast a spell which took hold of their wings and brought them back with a loud SNAP. The caretakers cringed, but the foals remained fast asleep. They didn’t feel a thing.

“It’s quite admirable to see so many ponies had the courage to willingly stay with their tribute in what was going to be their final moments.” Luna chuckled and wiped away an exaggerated tear. “I do wonder who will be emerging from the forest with their life. They will be looked upon with great pride, I presume,” she guessed and picked up the ten foals. It was more than the usual quill or scroll, but she managed just fine.

* * *

While other ponies wouldn’t dare to enter the Everfree Forest at night, Princess Luna relished in it. Her moon shined down against her navy blue coat through the thick leaves. She decided to place them down at the next clearing and come back the next morning to check who was left. “I have a good feeling about this one,” she said while lowering Button Mash at the edge of a large, open area, “A strong, broad chest for such a young age can bring about that much more vigor.”

Princess Luna arranged the tributes in the form of a two by five grid and strolled away. They were left roughly two hundred yards from the forest’s edge, so Luna inferred that at least one of them would come face to face with the wall she was about to put up. The guards had shooed everypony from the area and waited for the leader to return. She did so slowly before exerting a great amount of magic into creating a specifically-shaped dome - one that only surrounded the Everfree Forest on the New Lunar Republic side of Equestria. “No need for illegally interacting with the Solar Empire,” she thought.

“Okay,” she sighed to the guard, “I will go inform Twilight of the new arrangements. You may take your men and depart for the castle.”

“Yes, princess!” he responded. The stallion gave some signals to the escorts, and they all obediently headed for Canterlot Castle as Luna walked through the grass which would eventually lead to Twilight’s castle.

A number of the ponies stirred slightly in the midst of their unconscious spell, but Featherweight was the first to his hooves. Luna deliberately shot each of the ten with a different amount of power to avoid confusion and a bloodbath at the very start. Featherweight looked around and decided it would be best to leave the area before anypony else awakened.

He travelled away from the clearing and found himself at a precipitous hill. Not ten feet away was a tree which he thought may offer a good hiding spot, so he spread his wings, jumped forward, and immediately found that he couldn’t flap. “I’m falling,” he thought, letting out a loud yelp and flailing his legs in the air before hitting the ground with a dull thump. Having such a fragile bone structure didn’t help him; his two front legs broke wide open on impact - sharp bone cutting through veins and skin before spurting blood out onto the tall grass he landed in. Featherweight lost consciousness after whimpering in pain for a long minute. He wouldn’t wake up again.

* * *

For a long while, time seemed to stand still. Only when a cricket broke the silence did more of the tributes awake. Two of them - Button Mash and Pipsqueak. Looking at each other as they climbed up from the ground, they remembered the situation they were in. They realized that they could both die tonight… but Button Mash wasn’t going to let that happen. He gave a determined slant in his eyes and charged the miniature horse. Pipsqueak started running in the opposite direction without thinking twice. The spotted foal wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, but he could be the faster one in a race.

Across the clearing and through the same path Featherweight had taken, Button chased after Pipsqueak. The smaller of the two didn’t see the steep hill that took Featherweight’s life and tumbled down the slope. Several times he hit the ground at full force, but the only injury that affected him in the long run was one in which one of his back hoof bones shattered. Pipsqueak cried out - still being chased by Button, who was sliding down the hill. Pipsqueak hurried to get his bearings back and ran into a nearby treeline.

Button Mash lost sight of him. Even after reaching the bottom, he couldn’t find a trace of his fellow competitor. The grass was tall enough to hide the little one’s tracks, and what tracks would have been visible through the grass were too small to see anyway.

Button noticed a foal-sized, white shape about fifteen feet away. He walked closer. There, lying on the cold, damp earth, was Featherweight still frozen in his last moments. Button Mash took a long look at his legs and vomited. He’d seen this kind of thing in the games he played, but he hadn’t expected the real thing to look so horrifying, twisted, and awful. He wished he was in one of those games now, because then he wouldn’t have to come to terms with having to eliminate nine of his classmates just so he could survive. And for one of them to look like this… he shuddered to think about what he may have to do.