Author's Note
The filk was the first surprise. This was the other one.
Yes, I'm doing this. I'll still maintain the same rate for writing Knights of the Realm, but I'll also do my best to bring out chapters of this one regularly.
I actually had the idea of this story, and even wrote a little bit, even before I was inspired to write Hive Diplomacy, but it never went beyond one or two scenes. Now that I have a little bit of experience, I hope to be able to give this story the treatment it deserves.
Origins part 1
In the beautiful and elegant corridors of the castle of Canterlot, a unicorn walked. Many other ponies were also walking through them, guards, servants and the like, but that unicorn was going to a destination different from that of everypony else.
For that matter, her appearance was also different. Not her colours, as her coat was mulberry and her tricoloured mane (Blue, violet and rose) was unusual but not exactly unheard of. Her magician's cloak and hat (dark red for the coat, dark blue for the hat) only seemed strange due to the amount of magic stones expertly weaved into their fabrics, forming complex patterns.
The thing that really made her different from everypony else in terms of appearance were the magical seals drawn all over her coat. Circles and letters concentrated in certain areas and connected to each other via lines. A particularly heavy bit of spellwork was around her horn, making the intention of the seals amazingly clear. This was a working designed to completely seal the magic of the target, and it revealed that the target should have an amazing level of power to need such a heavy duty level of sealing.
The name of this unicorn was Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight was nervous. She had been called to an audience with the princesses by herself. This could mean one of two things:
Either she had done something very wrong without realizing it(she quickly thought about her actions in the last few days, trying to understand what that could be) or they had a new mission for her.
Twilight checked her connection to Spike. If it was the second option, she would need those powers soon. Everything seemed to be alright so she finally entered the conference room.
It was a small room with bare decoration, generally used for high level meetings with foreign dignitaries. The wall were a light blue while the floor was a dark brown.
The two princesses were at the table at the end of the room. Twilight looked at Luna and immediately got calmer. The night pony was waving at her with a huge smile on her face. Luna always knew how to calm her down, ever since she became Celestia's student. She said it was part of being the "fun sister".
Celestia was more serious, but she didn't seem to be angry, so it looked like it really was a mission. Twilight tried to think of the possible threats to the realm while she walked close to the table.
"Twilight Sparkle, thank you for coming so quickly" Celestia said.
"It was no trouble at all, your highness" and it isn't like I do much other than the missions, studying and training after all, Twilight added in her mind.
"Regardless, your attention is appreciated" Celestia gave a small smile "But let's get to the point. We have a special mission for you" She added in a more serious tone.
"And it is one of the big ones" Luna said, from her side of the table.
"What will I have to do, your highnesses?" There wasn't any question that she would accept the mission.
"In the first place, you will have to move to Ponyville, you shall be needed there."
"Moving? You mean, I'll be living there?" That would be the first time Twilight would be going so far from home.
"Yes. I have foreseen that your powers will be necessary in the long term" Celestia said, with a trace of sadness in her eyes.
Luna was less restrained, she jumped over the table and hugged Twilight "We're gonna write to you every week, and visit whenever possible."
"My sister is right Twilight. But I think you will be surprised at how much you will like it there" Celestia said, circling the table, before putting a hoof on Twilight's shoulder.
Twilight was about to say something about being surprised if that was true, before remembering something about Ponyville. There were two heroes in that city, the legendary Ponyville Crusader and the famous Mare Do Well. Perhaps there were in fact positives to that whole situation. Perhaps she would finally find some ponies who understood her.
"And don't worry" Luna said, with mischief in her voice "The Dragon Mage is going to be seen here for a while after you leave."
Twilight smiled at her "Just like Twilight Sparkle is frequently seen while the Dragon Mage is doing her thing?"
"Exactly."
-
In the property of the Sweet Apple Acres, a house stood.
It was an old-style house, the kind that had seen endless reforms through its long life. But from the state of the house, it could be seen that it was very well-cared for, meaning their owners were well-off. This was made even more apparent from the newer additions that blended almost seamlessly with the old architecture, making the house bigger without changing its spirit.
Inside that house, in a particularly private room, the ponies were talking. All three of them were earth ponies, and it was easy to see that they were related. One was an elderly mare with an apple pie cutie mark, another was a young stallion with a green apple cutie mark and the last was a young mare with a golden apple cutie mark. In order, they were Granny Smith, Big McIntosh and Applejack.
The former two had just informed Applejack of her new role.
Applejack couldn't believe what they were saying.
"Now? But, but Ah haven't gotten ready yet" She looked at Big Mac and Granny Smith with wide eyes.
"Yer gonna have ta learn quickly, then" Granny Smith said "Ya saw that Mac got very hurt the last time he went out. Now he can't use the necklace no more."
"Yup" Big Mac said, eyes sad.
Applejack looked at the necklace in her hooves. It seemed normal, with a black chain and a white jewel. Her friend Rarity would probably say it was "quietly elegant" or something like that, but she knew it was far more than that.
"But, ya don't seem that hurt ta me" Applejack said, looking at Big Mac.
"It's the kindness of the necklace" Granny said "He has been healed, but now he can't connect with the land. Everything has ta have a balance."
Applejack took a deep breath. This was sudden, but it was her responsibility and she wouldn't renege that. Ever since the beginnings of Ponyville, her family had been the protectors of the city, and now the mantle fell to her. Applejack put on the necklace.
For an instant, she could see everything in the city. Every building, house and field. All the inhabitants. She was connected to the land itself and nothing was beyond her reach.
Then it ended. Applejack could fell the infinite power just waiting to be grasped. She looked down at herself, the necklace had fused with her body and now no one could see it. Applejack activated it, and felt the transformation come over her.
A new Ponyville Crusader had been born.
-
In a hidden valley in the middle of the mountains, a place where very few ponies had ever set foot in, a pegasus was flying.
Her speed was fairly high, to the point it would be significant even in professional flying competitions. Nothing earth-shattering, but certainly something unusual.
She had a blue coat and a rainbow mane, as well as a rainbow cutie mark. Her face was scrunched up in concentration. Somewhat appropriately, her name was Rainbow Dash.
As she flew, she kept going faster and faster, and her face was revealing more and more traces of distress. It seemed like she was feeling an intense level of discomfort, that only got worse the faster she flew. But Rainbow Dash kept going, forcing herself to accelerate even further, to the point where it would be amazing even in the highest levels of the pegasus flying speed competitions.
And then suddenly her figure shifted. Her body was completely covered in what seemed like dense, solid rainbow, like a coat of paint that managed to completely hide all of her features, with two yellow circles on her face imitating eyes, and a violet line imitating a mouth. Even more impressive, her speed suddenly doubled, breaking through the sound barrier without even a blip, before the pegasus forced a stop with a suddenness that made it seem like she should have broken all of her bones in the deceleration.
Then, a second later, her body shifted back to normal, and her distressed expression was replaced with a sad one.
“I still can't control it...” She said to herself, before setting her face in a determined expression “But I got closer, I just need to try a little harder...”
Rainbow Dash then decided to fly back home.
But while she was in the way, she wondered why she kept getting the feeling she should go to the Everfree Forest.
-
Next to the Everfree Forest, very isolated from the rest of the city of Ponyville, a cottage stood. It was a large, beautiful cottage, full of birdhouses, and in several places nearby, there were special areas for animals to live.
However, that cottage had a few secrets that would never be revealed in only a cursory examination, and the biggest of them was the fact that, in a secret room cleverly concealed inside of a support pillar, there was a hidden passage to the underground that was so small an adult mare would barely be able to squeeze through.
And at the end of that passage, located under a fairly dangerous and remote area of the Everfree forest, there was a huge underground laboratory/workshop. Altogether, it was four times as large as the cottage.
The laboratory part had all kinds of scales, animal fur, blood and other biological samples, some hooked up to machines, some stored in technological packages with careful temperature control, some under the sight of weird laser lights and some others in all kinds of other conditions and situations. Big computers also dominated the environment.
On the other hand, the workshop part had all sorts of tools and materials. From common things like power drills and metal plates, to strange stuff like a pseudo-wrench shaped like an X and a small honeycombed blue crystal. It also had all sorts of machines, some which seemed almost like commercial stuff, complete and well designed, while others were half-finished, had exposed parts, or were simply not yet assembled.
In a certain alcove of the workshop, next to a thick, heavy-duty safety glass, there was a pegasus. Her coat was butter yellow, while her mane was pink. Her cutie mark depicted butterflies and her name was Fluttershy. Currently, she was standing on her rear legs, because her fore hooves were wrapped in some kind of technological gloves, replete with circuits that were connected to the wall with wires. She was also wearing huge googles which seemed a lot rougher and less well put together than the gloves, and were also connected to the wall.
Via the googles, she was looking at the feed of an adjustable camera which was in the room on the other side of the safety glass. Via the gloves, she was manipulating an industrial sized tool on the other side of the safety glass. That tool was an injector which shot high-temperature liquid metal, and she was using it (along with several other tools she could swap freely and were just as big) in order to perform maintenance on a certain amazing piece of technology.
It was mostly pony shaped, due to being a quadruped, but that was where the similarities to ponies ended. It had double the size of a hippo, and not one but three heads. One of the heads looked like the head of a lion with a horn, another looked like the elongated head of a crocodile and the last one was elephant shaped, complete with trunk and tusks. It had a tail with a stinger on the end, similar to that of a scorpion, but longer and with small black tendrils over its whole surface. It had two pairs of dragon-style wings, and the legs ended in feline style paws.
In its entirety, it seemed like a complete piece of technology, with no exposed or missing parts, and there were multitudes of small details, hidden hatches, suspicious bulges, small lenses, unexpected agglomerations of tendrils and things like that. All sorts of things that showed that this was an invention with all sorts of secrets and functions beyond the obvious.
Fluttershy sighed as she finished that round of maintenance. She took off both her gloves and her googles and started wondering why she had suddenly felt the need to make sure her Chimera Armor was perfectly ready for action, and why she wanted to wear it and fly deep into the Everfree Forest, even though she had never wore any of the armours for anything but testing before.
-
On one of the edges of Ponyville's commercial zone, there was a bakery and confectionery called Sugarcube Corner.
It was not one of the big businesses, being more of a family run establishment, but it was a showy store that attracted attention, and had an atmosphere that made it easy to get regular clients. The owners never had much trouble in the financial sense.
Inside one of the rooms of this place, there was an earth pony mare that was currently in the process of baking some confections for the following day. Both her coat and her (rather poofy) mane were pink, with the former being a light shade and the later being a dark one. She had a cutie mark of balloons.
The name of that mare was Pinkie Pie. And she was deep in thought while she baked:
'The Crystal Creation is finally dead, but I also almost died there. If Crusader hadn't blocked that beam with his body...'
Her face didn't reveal anything of what she was thinking, as she reflected on the events of the previous day.
'I was too careless. But with that, things should become a little more peaceful around here. I just hope the next thing Discord cooks up isn't as dangerous.'
Her body was still hurting a little, but she had long since learned to suppress that level of pain, and it wouldn't be a problem even if she had to go out in that same night.
The Mysterious Mare Do Well was always ready for action.
-
In another part of Ponyville, there was a small store where a fashion designer unicorn both lived and worked. That store was shaped like a cylinder and was named Carousel Boutique.
There was currently only a single pony inside that place, the aforementioned unicorn. Who was a mare with a light gray coat and indigo mane, as well as a cutie mark of diamonds.
She was named Rarity, and was currently casting a spell on herself.
“Testing, testing.” She said, after having finished with the spell.
Her voice was strange. It had a kind of ethereal quality and had changed in pitch somewhat. That had been the effect of the spell, achieved by putting a small point of magic inside her throat.
“Okay, everything perfect.” She said, before cancelling the spell.
While that magic was active, it would be impossible to recognize her by her voice. Rarity then looked at the clothes she had been working on recently.
It was a magnificent vestment, a multicoloured affair full of frills and laces with a big number of varied gems having been weaved into it in beautiful patterns. It was also all-concealing, with a mask that had special lenses to allow the wearer to see while not letting others see their eyes.
It was beautiful, but for Rarity, this sense of beauty was almost completely overshadowed by the sense of danger it emitted. For the unicorn, this dress was a weapon designed to give her abilities far beyond the capacities of most ponies, even if for most others, this dress would still be just a dress.
And Rarity still wasn't sure why she had actually made it all of a sudden. She had known about her abilities for very long, but never felt the need to create something like that.
She also wasn't sure why she wanted to wear it and go into the Everfree Forest.
-
Twilight Sparkle got into Ponyville without fanfare. She was relatively famous in Canterlot, but having arrived late, there simply weren't many ponies around, and she didn't have the trouble of being recognized, even with her distinctive appearance.
By her side was her friend Spike. A dragon she had hatched 10 years before. He was still small, and his scales were purple and green.
They didn't talk much while they were walking through town. And they got to their destination fairly quickly.
It was a house in a tree that had recently been rented out as a temporary living place.
Since Twilight would remain in Ponyville for a long while, the place had actually been bought and converted into a long-term habitation for both Twilight and Spike. The most important part had been bringing Twilight's book collection to the building, which made it become almost like a library.
The workers selected by the princess for the job were very efficient, and there was not much the two new residents had to do once they got there. Mostly it was just a question of slightly reorganizing a few things.
Spike went to sleep while Twilight was doing that, draining the magic from the jewels in her clothes to be able to use telekinesis, since her own magic was sealed.
And while she did this, Twilight was also wondering why she suddenly felt the need to change into her costume and enter the Everfree Forest.
Applejack was feeling doubt. This was the first time she had went out as the Ponyville Crusader and she didn't know what to expect. Even the great power she could feel just ready to be harnessed by her didn't help Applejack's doubts.
If anything, it only made them worse. She didn't feel worthy of this power, and she felt like she was going to disappoint all her ancestor who harnessed it before her. Still, she felt the need to go forward.
And when she and the other heroines appeared in some kind of underground cavern, Applejack decided that there was at least one thing she could do.
She took the lead and moved in front of the others, certain that she was more resilient than any of them. She also tried to focus her senses to the maximum, in order to try and figure out what was the deal with that place.
And the first thing she noticed was the fact that they weren't in a physical space, but some sort of magical location. And the location they were in should still be anchored in the Everfree Forest, so if they had no choice, Applejack could destroy this subspace and allow them to be ejected back into safety. However, she decided this would be only a last ditch option, because doing so would prevent them from reaching the end, where they had to go.
While she was thinking that, her senses suddenly noticed something concerning, and she shouted “Careful!” before abandoning the focus on her senses in favor of strengthening her energy form as much as she could.
Her choice was revealed to be right when the ground in front of them trembled and monstrous forms started to dig their way out of it. They were monsters made of stone that had varied forms, some of which were even similar to that of a pony, while others had all sorts of limb combinations and body shapes. The only things all of them had in common was first the fact that they were all pretty big, around five times the size of a pony, and they had eyes had appeared to be blue rocks.
The stone monsters didn't roar, for they didn't have mouths, but the sound of their “legs” hitting the ground as they rushed over to the group was already a terrifying substitute. Dozens of those monsters attacked, and the Ponyville Crusader stood in front of them as the first line.
Turning, she delivered a monumentally powerful buck, utterly disintegrating the first monster, but that was a mistake. She put too much of her strength into the buck and couldn't recover in time when the two monsters to the right and left of her target moved to attack her.
She didn't need to worry about it, though. She had two experienced heroines supporting her. Dragon Mage shot a ball of energy that blew one of the enemies backwards, causing several cracks to appear in his body. Mare Do Well jumped to the head of the other one, she use a hoof to hit him directly in the eyes in an attack that didn't seem very strong, but caused the rock monster to collapse in pieces.
“Their eyes are weak points!” The caped heroine announced, before jumping forward to the middle of the crowd of monsters and dodging around their attacks seemingly effortlessly, attacking the eyes of some of them in the process and forcing the others to use some of their limbs to protect their faces.
Sonic Rainbow was the first of the others to move, she flew over the group of monsters at insane speeds, then started attacking their rear with ramming attacks, splitting their concentration.
Many of the monsters seemed to realize that they were facing strong opponents, and decided to change tactics. They dug into the ground and grabbed masses of earth before throwing them at the heroines in front. Both Crusader and Dragon Mage prepared to receive them, but Gemstone showed her powers by using a phenomenal amount of telekinesis to shift the trajectories of the heavy chunks of earth, making them fall harmlessly to the sides.
Gaia Knight then charged into the fray, flying on steel dragon wings that were somehow channeling real magic (according to Crusader's senses), she opened hatches on her chest that released guided spear-like missiles, that pierced into the faces of the monsters and destroyed their eyes, making their remains fall down inert.
Crusader was inspired by the attack of the monsters and dug onto the earth herself, grabbing a chunk of ground she then threw into another monster's face, destroying it a lot more easily than she had done with a buck.
After that, the situation became chaotic. Even Crusader's special senses were hard-pressed to keep up with everything that was going on. Sonic Rainbow was attacking everywhere, flying from place to place so fast it was like she was teleporting. Mare Do Well was attracting the attention of many opponents at once, making them hit each other with their attacks and even taking some of them out herself when they revealed any flaws. Dragon Mage was using quick and reserved blasts of magic with the smell of a dragon to efficiently take care of any enemies that tried to group together. Gemstone was switching between squeezing the eyes of the monsters directly with telekinesis and somehow creating (without magic) very dense globes of water that she accelerated with telekinesis to act as heavy projectiles. And Gaia Knight, beside the missiles, was also releasing blasts of energy that seemed partially magic from the mouth of the lion head.
And the situation kept changing. Soon more monsters were generated from the back of the group, trying to attack while they were occupied in their fight. Dragon Mage called for them to move forward while fighting, and Crusader used her strength to bull rush through the middle of the enemy formation, creating a hole that was widened by the quick efforts of Gemstone, Dragon Mage and Sonic Rainbow, who used their respective abilities to attack any enemies that tried to close the path while they were going.
The group passed through the enemy zone and Mare Do Well suddenly warned:
“Traps on the walls!”
Without stopping her rush, Crusader turned to the right wall and prepared herself. It was just in time, as a crushing wall trap was revealed, and she managed to stop the crusher in its tracks. Behind her, Gemstone had done the same with the other wall, and the two heroines briefly struggled before Dragon Mage cast a spell on each of the walls that somehow made them stop moving.
The monsters were right behind them, so the group immediately went back on the move. Mare Do Well kept announcing traps before they showed up, from crushing ceilings and hidden pitfalls, to monsters coming out of the ceiling and projectiles being fired from hidden cannons. Dragon Mage, with her varied spells, and Ponyville Crusader, with her incredible physical abilities did most of the work on dealing with these news threats, but Gemstone's telekinesis, Sonic Rainbow's speed and Gaia Knight's ranged attacks also helped a lot.
And eventually, they got to the end of the cavern, crossing another portal at full speed.
-0-
Fluttershy had a moment of panic once the ground suddenly disappeared and she started to fall, but even in that condition she managed to reactivate the flight systems and stop in the air. She looked to the others: Rainbow Dash had already been flying once she went through the portal, and her ability ignored traditional flight notions, so she didn't even waver in the air. Dragon Mage activated a dragon wings spell that almost got the pegasus to stop concentrating on the situation and start thinking about the mechanics of it. Gemstone used her abnormally powerful telekinesis (potentially ability-enhanced?) to float. The last two were the most curious: The Ponyville Crusader seemed to kick off the air itself (probably some sort of energy manipulation) to reach a wall of the empty cylinder-like structure they were inside off and grab onto it. The Mysterious Mare Do Well had a grappling hook shot off from inside her costume (coming out of a very cleverly concealed slit) that caught on the wall and pulled her towards it.
Then, the caped heroine proceeded to run up the wall like it was ground, which was when Fluttershy noticed that their next destination was somewhere towards the top of that tower.
Crusader noticed that too and started to jump from wall to wall to get higher up. The other four, who could fly, also started to go up to their target.
But of course things couldn't be that easy. From windows on the walls of the tower, monsters started to appear. They were flying gargoyle-like reptiles, with sharp claws and teeth and bladed wings.
Dash was the fastest, and so she was the first to reach the monsters. They tried to tear her to pieces but her abilities made her too fast to catch and too resilient to injure even if she was caught. She started ramming the backs of the monsters to break their wings and make them fall.
Crusader was even more resilient, and so she simply crashed into the flying monsters while jumping from wall to wall, making the creatures that had the bad luck to be in her path turn into paste. Fluttershy saw that they were organic and decided that this was a good chance to test the Cockatrice Gaze.
She took a moment to reflect on the situation. She was once again facing scary monsters in a strange place filled with traps, and yet she wasn't afraid. It should be due to her neural connection with the Chimera Armor. She truly felt like she was a powerful creature of magical technology that could not be defeated by mere monsters or traps. This was why she felt the leisure to think about testing things. Seeing the effectiveness of her inventions made her strangely happy, and both the Stinger Missiles and the Focused Blast had turned out to be worthy of their development time.
So, she got close to one of the monsters and activated the mechanism in the left eye of the elephant head, gazing at the eyes of the creature.
It started to turn to stone, and two seconds later enough of it had changed that the monster couldn't keep itself in the air and started to fall. It appeared that the principles Fluttershy had derived from her research on cockatrices were applicable to combat.
After that, she saw through her sensors Dragon Mage start to hit the monsters with spells that killed them instantly and Gemstone return to using her previous strategy of creating a dense sphere of water with her power and accelerating it into a dangerous projectile with her telekinesis. But the most surprising part was Mare Do Well, who was actually using the monsters as platforms to get higher easier, easily evading their attacks and tapping the heads of those she landed on to kill them.
From closer, Fluttershy managed to discover her secret, she was using retractable climbing spokes on her hooves, which she was enhancing with earth pony magic to turn into deadly sharp and quick weapons. She was definitely also using them as ordinary climbing spokes to go up the wall earlier.
The group kept going up, and Gaia Knight managed to also test and approve of the efficiency of her razor wings system. But then the tower did the same as their previous location and also upped the challenge, starting with dropping huge rocks on them from above. Most of the heroines choose to avoid them, but Crusader simply broke through everyone of them that got in her way, seemingly wanting to create a safe place for the others to follow.
Gaia Knight refused in favor of activating the Star Aura system (created based on research of the bodies of Ursa Minor and Major) and rammed through a huge stone of her own, feeling like that kind of system that included both attack and defense was a particularly great accomplishment.
But she couldn't bask on it, as things started to get even more intense. The windows started to discharge blasts of fire that wouldn't lose out to real dragon fire breathing, walls started breaking as huge shadowy hands came from them to try and smash the heroines, and even the parts below them became a problem, as thousands of arrows were shot from there somehow and tried to skewer the group from behind.
Things were very bad, but the group actually found it easier than the first stage. The reason for that was because they were getting more and more used to working together, and understood each others' abilities enough to be able to trust in their skills and focus more on their own problems. Mare Do Well kicked Dragon Mage out of the path of a particularly fast arrow, Crusader called for Gemstone to use her as a shield with her telekinesis, Sonic Rainbow understood perfectly when Gaia Knight shot a missile at her, dodging at the last moment to hit a hand that came out of the wall with amazing suddenness.
Those kinds of maneuvers got more and more frequent as they went up, until the group passed through the new portal.
-0-
Rainbow Dash quickly looked around when the group got to a new place. It was a beach right next to a dense forest. She was hearing a strange sound coming from the forest but she couldn't understand what it was. Thanks to her ability, Rainbow Dash was able to see all around herself like she had eyes everywhere, but all her other senses were normal, as such her first indication that something dangerous was happening was with Mare Do Well's alert.
She jumped on Ponyville Crusader's back (this was a scene that countless children in Ponyville replicated with their toys, because every time the two teamed up like that, it led to amazing things) and pointed to the distance in the side of the ocean, while shouting:
“RUN!”
There was no reason for Crusader to refuse, and she ran on top of the water at high speed. The other heroes were only a moment behind, flying in the same direction as the two, a direction which they could now sense was the same direction they had to go to get closer to their destination. Rainbow even quickly surpassed the two.
The reason for Mare Do Well's urgency was revealed soon, along with the source of the strange noise Rainbow Dash had been hearing, as a gigantic wave coming from the forest appeared to consume the entire horizon, and soon overtake the beach where they had stood.
Looking back, Rainbow Dash noticed that, while they were keeping their distance comfortably in the beginning, the wave started to accelerate more and more. Her powers made it so that flight wasn't a problem for Rainbow (even as the wave surpassed 300 Km/h, this was child's play to a pony who could move beyond the speed of sound), and Crusader was simply increasing her speed like this didn't take any effort.
But the others weren't having such luck. Gemstone was the first to show problems, as she started to use a weird ability to briefly manipulate the space around her to give herself a burst of speed, but even repeating that over and over, she was falling behind. Rainbow thought of helping her, but Mare Do Well threw her grappling hook at the unicorn, who grabbed onto it via telekinesis and simply held on while Do Well kept her hold on the Crusader.
When they passed 400 Km/h, the flying abilities of Fluttershy's armor didn't prove up to the task of keeping pace (and she was still having difficulty believing that Fluttershy was actually wearing one of her armors and fighting), so this time Rainbow dropped back a bit and started pushing her forward.
When they passed 600 Km/h, Dragon Mage was forced to use a spell that created a blue aura around herself and increased her speed. It wasn't really unexpected, even most pegasi wouldn't be able to fly at that speed for long.
The wave finally stopped accelerating at around 700 Km/h, but their trial was still not over. Mare Do Well started calling “Left!” and “Right!” at certain moments to make Crusader dodge small but powerful geysers of water that started coming out of the ocean, and then it was huge, carnivorous fish that started appearing and attacking the group. Dragon Mage and Gaia Knight's ranged attacks were the only thing that prevented their attacks.
And then it started to hail. Big hailstones were falling from the sky, to the point where even strong pegasi wouldn't want to be flying. Mare Do Well had changed spots and protected herself by hanging on the underside of Crusader. Gaia Knight was using that same aura she used on the previous place to break through the rocks, Dragon Mage had created a bunch of magical barriers, Gemstone had created a weird, two-layered barrier (with the inner layer seemingly solid while the outer layer was somehow hazy like fog), while Sonic Rainbow was protected by her Rainbow Coating.
She quickly realized that this would make it a lot harder for the others to attack the fish, and she wasn't sure if Ponyville Crusader would be able to run and fight at the same time while also keeping Mare Do Well from getting hurt, so Sonic Rainbow accelerated, pushing Gaia Knight to the side of Crusader, shouting “Grab onto her!” and moving forward herself to intercept the fishes with repeated ramming attacks.
This went on for a few more seconds, until the six suddenly passed through another portal.
-0-
Rarity felt like she had done a good job at selecting which gems to weave into her costume to get the most useful powers. With Aquamarine, she could create a dense sphere of water and propel it forward, it wasn't very fast but it could be accelerated with her telekinesis to great effect. She could also use the abilities of the Corundum gems, Ruby and Sapphire, to change the temperature of objects nearby, she had chosen them to change the sphere of water into steam or ice for special occasion, but it could also help with other things.
For defense, she had a sunstone, a chromite and a malachite. The first hardened her body like a gem, increasing her defense, the second created a physical barrier similar to a shield spell, and the third created a kind of “energy-denial” field, which sapped part of the energy of everything that went through it, objects slowed down, heat didn't transfer properly and etc. None of them were great defenses on their own, but all together the way she did made for a protection she could definitely rely on.
Jadeite was perhaps the gem with the weirdest abilities among what she was using. It could shift space itself for a brief moment. Rarity was sure there were lots of things she could do with it, but so far, she had only managed to work out a way to shorten the space between herself and her destination to get to places quicker.
And with Jacinth, she could quickly shape earth into objects, and she used it as soon as she got to the next destination, a kind of slide tunnel going underground. She shaped a board and rode it, wanting to take advantage of whatever she could to get to the end quicker instead of simply flying.
Sonic Rainbow didn't share her idea, but she was so fast it probably wouldn't matter anyway. Ponyville Crusader was so tough she didn't have to worry about her legs, and simply slid using them. Mare Do Well had jumped from her back and was using her grappling hook to swing on the ceiling of the tunnel repeatedly, accelerating madly. Dragon Mage imitated her by simply using an earth-shaping spell with greater speed and ease than pretty much any unicorn that didn't have some kind of earth-based cutie mark or a gift related to the earth. Gaia Knight was doing the same as the Crusader.
And of course, simply sliding down wouldn't be nearly enough to act as a trial, and Rarity had figured out the six of them were going through some kind of trial before being allowed to reach their destination, whatever it was.
There were monsters, like always. This time creatures that seemed like Diamond Dogs made of steel. Only they were a lot smarter than any previous monsters. This could be seen by the fact that they were using boards as well, and wielding varied weapons. They came from several auxiliary tunnels, some of them were carrying long spears, some were carrying bow and arrows, some were carrying magical staves, and a group of them was even carrying a cannon in a kind of group board.
And they weren't simply cannon fodder. One of them managed to fend off a quick strike from Sonic Rainbow with his spear, and another one managed to intercept one of Dragon Mage's spells with a quick arrow.
However, they didn't seem to be prepared for more unusual attack options. Gemstone used the Aquamarine + Ruby + Telekinesis combo to blast one of them with high pressure steam, which made him fall off his board, and Mare Do Well managed to drop another one by jumping into his board and breaking it before returning to the air.
By this point, all six of them were sliding backwards to be able to face the enemies, and the battle started in earnest. Arrows flew through the air with deadly accuracy and extreme piercing power. Staff-wielding dogs used magic to throw rock spikes from the walls at them. Dogs wielding spears showed strength that even Ponyville Crusader couldn't ignore. The cannon fired several times, causing general havoc and destruction on the tunnel.
But the heroines weren't discouraged. Mare Do Well went to the middle of the enemy formation and dodged every single attack aimed in her direction, distracting a lot of the enemies. Sonic Rainbow accelerated even further and went back past the dogs to attack them from the rear, when the steam was blocked by a quickly-casted magical rock barrier, Rarity instead used her Jacinth again to create a ramp that made several dogs fly, exposing the blind spots in their underside and allowing Dragon Mage to break their boards.
Ponyville Crusader was batting away every cannonball, acting as an impenetrable defense. Dragon Mage countered the magic and arrows of the opponents with fast and furious spells. Gaia Knight kept them off-balance with several missiles and blasts attacking nearly invisible weak spots in their formations.
And then Mare Do Well jumped on top of Sonic Rainbow and yelled “ACCELERATE!”
Hearing the sheer urgency in her voice, Rarity again pushed her telekinesis to the limit to increase her speed while also activating her Jadeite ability. She saw the others accelerating in their own ways, and they managed to get some distance from the enemies.
It was just in time. A wall broke with a flow of magma coming through it, a flow that came dangerously close to frying them, and Rarity, who wasn't even that far back in relation to the others, still felt incredibly hot, almost to the point she had to use her defenses.
The six screamed forward, trying to put as much distance between them and the fire as possible. But things couldn't be that easy, and a group of “Steel Dogs” appeared in front of them, just as heavily armed and sliding backwards, apparently wanting to delay their enemies as much as possible and positively daring the six to plow through their formation.
So they did.
Ponyville Crusader advanced in front like the tip of an arrow, drawing most of the attacks and enduring through them. Dragon Mage roared as she charged her magic and shot a sphere of immense concentrated energy that caused an explosion on their left flank. Sonic Rainbow shot through the right flank faster than they could react, hitting an entire line of enemies. Gaia Knight opened hatches all over and shot an absolutely ridiculous amount of missiles at the more distant opponents. Mare Do Well landed on the Crusader and shot off her grappling hook before waving it like a scythe, hitting the boards of the enemies and making them stumble. While Gemstone was splitting her focus among as many enemies as possible, focusing her extreme telekinesis on their arms to make it harder to retaliate.
It was a screaming nexus of pure violence and impact, but in a second they were through, and the “Steel Dogs” had been left behind, and the magma was too far to matter.
And with that, they reached the final portal.
-0-
As soon as they went through, Dragon Mage realized that they weren't inside sub-realities anymore, and instead were back in the real world. She had time to notice that they seemed to be inside of a castle that was in ruins before a figure caught her eye.
Her brain barely registered that the figure had a staff floating by its side when the appearance of the figure hit her mind like a train.
A black coat, while both eyes and regalia were blue. Horn and wings and an aura of darkness. The cutie mark of a crescent moon, while her mane and tail seemed to be made of the dark parts of space.
“NIGHTMARE MOON?!” She shouted.
But she is supposed to be dead! Dragon Mage screamed in her mind before focusing back. She started to charge a spell to attack, knowing that she couldn't hesitate at all...
“Bow.” Nightmare Moon ordered.
And suddenly her spell fizzled, as Dragon Mage found herself with her face to the ground.
“How... ? I can't control myself...” She forced the words out, while trying desperately to charge magic again unsuccessfully and seeing figures around her in the same situation from the corner of her eye.
The being of power and corruption laughed and deigned to explain “This is the Staff of Gift Control. The most powerful artifact in existence. None who are Gifted can resist the will of the one who bears the Staff.”
“You...! Ah won't...” Ponyville Crusader tried to resist, forcing all her will power to try to stand.
“It's useless.” Nightmare Moon spoke with a coldly amused voice “You five who have passed the trials shall become the first step in my path for the conquest of Equestria. Submit!”
“GAAAAAH!” Dragon Mage screamed. In fact, they all screamed.
She felt like there was a darkness that was trying to forcefully pierce inside her head, she felt like something was trying to snuff out her thoughts and destroy her sense of self. She tried to resist but the pressure felt overwhelming and she couldn't put up any resistance.
Still. One thought remained in her mind that caused a bolt of hope to flash through her heart.
Five...?
Crack!
And the pressure suddenly disappeared. Dragon Mage opened her eyes to see a sight that would remain with her until her last days. It was the Mysterious Mare Do Well, kicking Nightmare Moon in the jaw and taking away the staff in a single, fluid motion.
She dropped to the ground, still holding the staff in her left fore hoof. Nightmare Moon snarled and shot a blast of magic at her, but Mare Do Well jumped to the side before the shot had even left her horn, and evaded the attack completely. She tried again, and the heroine reversed her movement and jumped back to evade again.
That was when Dragon Mage recovered. She shot her fastest blast at the alicorn, managing to force her to block. Then Ponyville Crusader shouted in anger and rushed at Nightmare Moon. The opponent teleported away to the air, but Crusader was beyond caring, she followed through the teleport and spiked Nightmare Moon with a hoof in an attack that caused her to create a crater when she hit the ground.
Sonic Rainbow rammed into her at high speed, but Nightmare Moon managed to put up a barrier in time and avoid the damage. Gemstone squeezed her horn with a tremendous force of telekinesis, causing Nightmare Moon to grunt in pain, but then she shot a blast in the direction of the unicorn, forcing her to cancel her attack to dodge.
Gaia Knight reached to attack with a clawed paw, which was blocked with another shield, but that was just a feint, and she turned to attack with her tail, which hit and discharged a huge amount of electricity into Nightmare Moon. Ponyville Crusader fell back down and tried to hit her again, but Nightmare Moon flapped her wings to create a hugely powerful wind and send her flying.
Dragon Mage had used those few seconds to prepare her next attack, drawing deep from the draconic power she had access via her link with Spike, creating a sphere of power that crackled with energy and aggression. She shot it forward just as Sonic Rainbow pushed Gaia Knight away from Nightmare Moon.
BOOOOOM!
The explosion was tremendous, and it raised a huge cloud of dust. Dragon Mage immediately cast a wind spell to remove the dust, knowing that she couldn't give Nightmare Moon even the slightest chance to recover...
But even doing everything right, things didn't work out.
Nightmare Moon teleported immediately to Ponyville Crusader's side and used an immense amount of telekinetic power to throw her far into the sky. Then she flapped her wings again and immediately released a wave of cold that froze everything in range.
Dragon Mage defended with her shield spells, but that was too passive and she knew it. Nightmare Moon's next act was to send a blast of power at Sonic Rainbow and Gaia Knight. The mechanical apparatus stepped in front of the other heroine and activated her aura in defense, but the sound of tearing metal told Dragon Mage it hadn't been quite enough.
The dragon-linked unicorn shouted, releasing a burst of power with the best fire signature she could make on short notice, dumping dragon power freely to wipe out the cold and allow the others to move. Then she saw a ball of energy coming towards her and remade her defenses, seeing that Gemstone was in the same situation...
Then Mare Do Well came out of nowhere and kicked Nightmare Moon again, this time in the horn.
-0-
Mare Do Well had done the most important thing, and now the Staff of Gift Control was out of the control of Nightmare Moon. With this, she returned to the battlefield.
Despite being an incredibly powerful creature, Nightmare Moon still worked the same way as a natural being, and as such, there were weak points that could not be avoided. One was the horn, since it had to channel magic in a delicate process. Another one was...
In the brief moment of stun from the kick in the horn, Mare Do Well reached with a hoof and channeled a bit of earth pony magic to pop the climbing spikes of that hoof and strengthen them for a moment, and slashed at the eyes of the alicorn.
The eyes. Nightmare Moon screamed, blinded, and Mare Do Well knew her attack had done a good bit of damage and blinded her for a few moments before she could focus and use magic to recover.
(Hoof swing in front) Came the alert of the Pinkie Sense, and she dodged to the side before punching at Nightmare Moon's jaw.
(Magical burst 180 degrees) Came another alert, and she jumped over the head before the place where she had been got destroyed by magic.
She landed on the neck with a stomp which included her spikes. (Area damage spell, centered on Nightmare Moon) came another alert, and she spun and wrapped Nightmare Moon's horn with her cape, before channeling a bit of earth pony magic through it and making the spell fizzle.
Then she channeled a lot more magic and ripped her cape away from the horn, causing the same effect as a slash of magic.
Nightmare Moon screamed again. (Upwards burst of magic) She jumped out from the back to avoid the new threat. Nightmare Moon forcefully fixed her eyes with direct magic and used telekinesis to grab Mare Do Well's cape.
But the heroine was a veteran. She had dealt with that weak point long ago. The bit of cape that was grabbed unwove itself thanks to a pulse of magic from Do Well, and then rewove itself. Nightmare Moon reached to grab her leg instead, but Mare Do Well used her earth pony magic to throw a metal disc through the slit in her costume at the horn of her opponent, canceling the magic due to the surprise.
But that was pretty much the limit. Mare Do Well had managed to keep Nightmare Moon occupied for a while, but she couldn't defeat her, and she was barely managing to protect herself.
That was because she was buying time.
A rainbow-coated pegasus rammed into Nightmare Moon and hit her dozens of times in a second before a burst of magic threw her away. Ponyville Crusader landed right on top of the alicorn with a powerful punch, having used the air to jump down and force herself back faster.
Another burst of magic threw Crusader a few meters away. But Mare Do Well knew Nightmare Moon should be getting close to her limits. That was the vibe she had felt from the desperate attacks she was doing. It appeared that Dragon Mage's attack had really hurt.
Seeing the others preparing their own attacks, Mare Do Well pretty much just watched the show. The next to come was Gemstone, who used her space manipulation to appear floating right next to Nightmare Moon and putting both fore hooves on her horn to use her telekinesis on it directly with a shout, releasing such a great amount of power that it made the horn of the alicorn actually crack.
Nightmare Moon shifted into a mist-like form, trying to get some time to breathe. Mare Do Well started to bring out her special tool for this situation... but stopped when Dragon Mage hit the enemy with a spell that forced her back into corporeal form.
Then Gaia Knight's own attack became ready. Part of the armor had been ripped away but she was still quite functional, and released three blasts from the mouths that came together into a powerful explosion that caused cracks to start appearing on the very body of Nightmare Moon.
Then Ponyville Crusader was back, and she turned back and hit the alicorn with a tremendous buck, that sent her to the air and caused the cracks to widen. And then Dragon Mage connected with the five energy spheres she had created and shot beams of magic from each of them and her horn, and they fused into a devastating energy beam that completely engulfed Nightmare Moon.
When it was over, half her body had vanished, and the rest was completely covered in cracks. Still, she spoke a single word.
“Escape.”
And a hidden magical circle activated and released a pulse of magic that hit Nightmare Moon and made her vanish.
There was a moment where the others maintained their guard, just in case that was a trick. Then they relaxed.
They looked around for a moment without seeming to know what to do. Then Dragon Mage looked at Mare Do Well.
“What did you do with the Staff?” She asked.
Mare Do Well used a pulse of magic to recover the staff from the same place she kept her grappling hook and other tools, the interior of her mane. And made it come out via the same hidden slit in her costume.
“This thing is too dangerous. I don't know where she found it, but I don't feel that hiding it someplace is quite enough.” She looked at the Crusader “If you would...?”
Mare Do Well handed the staff to Ponyville Crusader, who took it in her mouth and forcefully bit down. And for a few seconds, it seemed like it wouldn't be enough, but then the Staff started to crack and it finally snapped in two.
A pulse of magic was released from the Staff, and it seemed to expand to encompass the entire world. Mare Do Well could tell that the others had felt something, but her Pinkie Sense was telling her that this act would have big repercussions.
-0-
The heroines have their first victory, but what was the deal with Nightmare Moon? And what could be the consequences of destroying such a powerful Artifact?
All shall be revealed in the final chapter of the first arc of the League of Harmony: Origins part 4!
See you there!
Author's Note
That was worthy of the wait, I fell.
This is the longest chapter I have ever written, by far. I was really inspired here.
Ah, have you seen my new story, Sunset and the Seven Girls? Some of you may like it.
Just a little bit after the Staff was broken, Dragon Mage got a letter from Celestia.
It was a short letter, bluntly asking about the situation, so the unicorn did the usual and used a somewhat esoteric spell, creating a memory packet of her experiences in the last few hours and sending it to the Princess.
Then she looked at the others “I think... Everypony here should want to understand what happened.”
They all answered in the affirmative, so she nodded.
“I think the princesses should be able to clarify things, I've just sent a message, so...”
She was interrupted by another letter appearing. This one was longer, and had a format Dragon Mage was familiar with. She summarized the letter.
“In their authority as rulers of Equestria, Celestia and Luna are calling all six of us to meet with them for a secret debriefing.”
There were looks in between the five, but they had fought together, and they had no reason to disbelieve Dragon Mage, so they all accepted.
The unicorn walked towards them and did a beacon spell around them, allowing Celestia to detect them and teleport all six directly to Canterlot.
-0-
They appeared already inside the meeting room, with both princesses right in front of them.
Everypony except Dragon Mage did a hasty bow, before Celestia told them to stand at ease.
Mare Do Well took that opportunity to unmask herself.
“Mare Do Well?!” Dragon Mage was completely shocked.
“Pinkie?!” The other heroines were also shocked, but for a different reason.
She explained herself “I feel like this is something I should do. And there's nopony here that I don't trust.”
“If you say something like that, Ah guess there no reason for me not to do the same.” Ponyville Crusader said.
Considering that the two biggest heroines in Ponyville had agreed, the other ponies also chose to do the same thing, and Dragon Mage had the same idea. For both Ponyville Crusader and Sonic Rainbow, it was only a matter of deactivating their powers, Mare Do Well and Gemstone had a little bit more work to take off their costumes (Do Well stored hers in her mane), and Dragon Mage had to exchange her costume for what she usually wore, reverse her transmutation spell and summon the silver tablet again to reapply the magical seals.
Still, it was easier than Gaia Knight, who had to do a whole process to open up a path to crawl through and exit her mech armor. And during all this, Celestia and Luna looked on bemusedly at the interactions. It quickly became apparent that every single member of the Ponyville contingent knew Mare Do Well, or rather Pinkie Pie:
-0-
“You were Mare Do Well this whole time?!” Rainbow Dash was the first to demand answers “How old are you even?”
“Twenty-two.” Pinkie answered, taking a photo of herself blowing out candles spelling out the number from her mane.
“That means you must have been only eleven when you started! How is that possible? Mare Do Well never seemed like a filly.” The pegasus asked, and the others also seemed fairly interested in the answer.
“I had special stilts, that also allowed me to kick a lot stronger than a filly should. Over time, I became strong enough and grew enough that they became obsolete.” Pinkie Pie explained.
“I still can't quite believe it. I have posters of you in my room!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, and the others expressed similar sentiments. Pinkie only smiled broadly.
-0-
And that wasn't the only surprise in terms of ponies knowing each other. Ponyville Crusader turned out to be Applejack, the famous self-made boss of the Apple Corporation. But there was also a pony who knew her personally.
-0-
“Applejack, but how could you be the Ponyville Crusader?” Gemstone, or Rarity, asked “I remember that time where both of us got saved by him!”
“Ah only became Crusader yesterday. During that time, Granny Smith was acting as Crusader, and recently, it has been mah brother. It's a family thing.” The earth pony answered.
“So... How do you know each other?” Twilight asked the two.
“We were in the same class in primary school and we just... kept in touch.” Rarity answered.
-0-
And being moderately famous, Twilight's identity also drew some comment.
-0-
“Ahh... I want to know... How did you manage to appear in two places at once? There were many cases where Dragon Mage was active while First Court Mage Twilight Sparkle was busy somewhere else.” Gaia Knight, or rather Fluttershy, asked.
Twilight shrugged “Princess Luna is very good at illusions and avatars.”
Said Princess waved at them upon being mentioned and spoke “Dragon Mage is going to make a patrol around Canterlot tomorrow.”
Fluttershy nodded, still a little intimidated by the whole situation.
“And what's the deal with the magical seals?” Pinkie asked, startling Twilight with her sudden appearance “I thought Twilight Sparkle's seals were only going to be removed when she reached twenty-five, but you did it easily.”
Twilight recovered and answered “They are. But my seals can be removed and put back whenever I want with the silver tablet. That was how they were made. But doing so by any other method would be incredibly difficult and time-consuming, so 'having sealed magic' is a good cover for me.”
-0-
And then there was Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who surprised the others by knowing each other and not being surprised at their secret identities.
-0-
“Oh yeah. We knew about each others' powers for years.” Rainbow Dash explained “She was there the first time my ability manifested itself, and when she started having her mad science ideas, she told me about it.”
“I imagine it must have been quite a long time, considering how advanced her armor is.” Twilight said, pointing at the Chimera Armor.
“Yes... It's been nine years of designs, study and tests.” Fluttershy seemed less withdrawn when speaking about it.
-0-
Everything done, Celestia decided to begin the serious talk.
“So.. I presume you have many questions.” She said.
Pinkie Pie was the first to speak “What is the deal with Nightmare Moon and that subworld?”
“What is the Staff of Gift Control and where did it came from?” Applejack asked.
“And why did Nightmare Moon make us go through all of that when she could have simply taken control of us at any time?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“And how did Mare Do Well managed to resist the power of the Staff?” Twilight asked.
“Well...” Celestia started “Apart from the thing about Mare Do Well, I can explain everything.” And then she looked meaningfully at Pinkie Pie.
“Oh?” She smiled “That was a Staff of Gift Control, right? I was safe because I didn't have a gift.”
“What.” Twilight said flatly “But... How can you sense danger? How can you store things in your mane? How can you throw things without using your hooves or your mouth?”
“Well... Throwing things is actually pretty simple.” She took one of her metal discs from her mane and made it move around her body “Earth ponies naturally use their magic to grasp things with their hooves, but using the hooves is just easier. When I was a filly, there was a performer who had trained to be able to easily use her earth pony magic from every part of her body. I thought it seemed useful, so I did the same thing.”
Then she brought out her grappling hook “There's also a technique used by earth pony climbers to weave their magic into the rope to be able to channel through it like the rope was part of their bodies.”
Then she put a hoof on her chin “Now the first two things... They are part of my Pinkie Powers. I'm not exactly sure about how they work, but they are definitely not a Gift. I think it's some form of natural magic.”
They thought about that, and Celestia walked closer to Pinkie “Would you allow me to examine your body to see what I can learn about that?”
“Okie doki!” Pinkie agreed, and Celestia cast a few diagnosis spells.
“Hmm... You really have a strange kind of natural magic. Part of it is white magic, part is black magic, part is chaos magic, part is empathic magic... And there's a few deeper things I don't quite understand...”
Rarity remembered something “Wait. Your Pinkie abilities... Does that mean all those weird things you can do, like appearing in mirrors and diving into shadows... Are they part of the Pinkie Powers as well?”
Twilight had her mouth open “Appearing in mirrors and diving into shadows... What?” She was feeling a little out of her depth.
“Yes.” Pinkie said simply, while acting like Celestia's spells were making her ticklish.
“Then... Why don't you use them as Mare Do Well? Is it just to protect your identity?” Rarity asked, not understanding.
“No. This is just how the Pinkie Powers work. I can't use most of them when I'm being serious. Just the two you already know I use.” She said, and Rarity nodded, satisfied with the explanation.
“Yeah... This is far beyond my understanding of magic.” Celestia admitted “But there's something I can do to help you. Could you allow me to heal you?”
“Heal? Okay.” Pinkie said, surprised.
Celestia used a spell, and Pinkie's eyes widened “Uhhhh...”
As soon as the spell ended, Pinkie jumped to an upright position and started going through a sequence of martial arts movements, which Twilight recognized as a variation on kenpo (it was the same thing Mare Do Well used, so Twilight had researched it), and kept going faster and faster.
“I've been reborn!” She shouted, forehooves to the air, and exploded.
-0-
Every single pony present blinked and shook their head. There had definitely been an explosion, with light, sound and impact... But there were no traces left, and Pinkie was simply sitting down with a smile on her face.
Having seen the natural magic on her body, Celestia decided that this should be one of those weird Pinkie things, and simply went forward with her explanation:
“Your medic is pretty good but...”
“She's nurse Redheart, she helped me a lot for a while.” Pinkie interrupted her, putting a hoof to her chest.
“But even with that, and your natural healing abilities as an earth pony,” She continued, ignoring the interruption “Spending over ten years fighting as a heroine, you've accumulated a lot of hidden damage and stress on your body. Even I can't heal all of it, but over time, I treated enough heroes to be able to reduce the burden on their bodies. Otherwise, one day you would slow down suddenly during a critical situation and... You know how that goes.”
Everypony looked down for a moment, but then Luna started to speak, her voice somber.
“Now that this issue is resolved. I guess the question of Nightmare Moon should be the next thing to deal it. And I am the most well suited for explaining things, considering that it is my fault that she even exists.”
“Lulu...” Celestia said, concern in her voice.
“Don't worry Celly. These ponies have trusted us enough to reveal their identities, so why shouldn’t I trust them with my biggest regret?” She took a deep breath and began “In public terms, Nightmare Moon is a villain that has caused trouble in the world since a thousand years ago. Her main motivation is power and control. Twenty-five years ago, in a fight against Grand Pegasus and Shadow Eye (who was actually a villain, but it was a complicated situation) Nightmare Moon tried to take control of a dangerous artifact and ended up being destroyed. There was no sign of her, and so even I thought she was dead, specially as the years passed and she didn't return.”
After a moment, she kept going “This enters into the territory of other questions, but the Staff of Gift Control was something me and Celly sealed millenia ago, and was absolutely a secret. I don't know exactly how things went, but the situation of her near death or something allowed her to access my memories, something she definitely wasn't capable of before, and either she chose to lay low to wait until we weren't paying proper attention to the seal, or she only managed to recover her strength recently, or she simply took that long to get through all the defenses. The trials you went through were actually reduced versions of the real defenses, who were also supposed to be endless. Nightmare Moon must have changed them to allow Gifted to pass through into a place where they could be controlled without interference, but that also enters the territory of other questions.”
She sighed, then resumed her explanation “You must be wondering why I thought she must have accessed my memories. The reason for that is because Nightmare Moon came from me. Once, a thousand years ago... I got jealous of my sister, and the fact that the ponies seemed to care more about her than they did about me. I secretly decided to rebel, and started empowering myself with black magic... When something at once lucky and unlucky happened. I fell ill.”
“As you might expect from an illness capable of striking an alicorn, it wasn't anything normal. I would only discover that later, but I had been infected with a magical parasite, a one-of-a-kind existence that only was born due to a series of coincidences that are too strange and complicated to get into here. The parasite started draining my power, and my sister started taking care of me.”
She smiled at Celestia “Seeing her concern, I understood that I had been blind to what was really important, and I confessed everything to her. She forgave me, and I let go of the dark magic, which meant the weakness the parasite had used to infect me was gone. Mine and Celestia's power managed to remove it from my body, but by that point, it had absorbed enough power to become the being now known as Nightmare Moon.”
There was a moment of silence before Pinkie Pie spoke “So, that means every time she appears you get reminded of your mistakes. That's sad.”
Luna blinked in surprise “You got it perfectly, little Pinkie. I've already come to terms with it, but this is still not a pleasant situation.”
Pinkie Pie put a hoof in her heart “Don't worry, Princess! We heroes won't allow her to cause too much damage!” She declared. Twilight agreed, and Applejack was only a little bit behind.
“Thank you.” Luna smiled.
Celestia decided to get the conversation back on track “And that is everything we can tell you about Nightmare Moon.” She stopped for a moment “Next is explaining the Staff of Gift Control, which will also explain Nightmare Moon's actions in regards to using it.”
She cast a spell that created the silhouette of a castle, with a unicorn with a crown on top of it.
“This is a very old story. So old, that even me and my sister aren't quite as old as it. It is a story that begins with... Queen Majesty.”
The six non-alicorns in the room felt chills on their spines. Queen Majesty was one of the worst monsters in the story of ponies (and other species, but the ponies took it particularly hard), and the only being that caused more fear than her was the legendary Tirek. For generations, the role of monster that appears in the nightmares of foals was shared between those two.
“The story is well-known. Queen Majesty used her great power to subjugate not only the pony race but also every living being in the world. The days of her rule were filled with fear, as she treated her subjects no better than toys, sometimes 'breaking' them when she was bored, or forcefully transforming them if she didn't like how they looked like. And her powers were so great that for decades, no heroes were able to defeat her.” Celestia recited.
She stopped for a moment, before resuming the story “The ending of the story is also well-known. After discovering a place in the world where magic didn't work, a certain group of heroes tricked her into stepping there, where she was powerless and could not defend herself... But this ending is a lie.”
The six heroines were surprised by that, and they paid maximum attention to what Celestia was saying.
“This ending implies that Queen Majesty's great power was magic, but that is actually a deliberate misdirection. Her actual power was a Gift, and a very famous one. She had the Gift of Wishes, the same one as the legendary Twilight of Paradise Estate.”
“What?!” Twilight was startled by that “But Twilight's power could only grant small wishes! How could that be possible?”
“The idea that the Gift of Wishes is so limited is another deliberate misdirection. Twilight understood the consequences of asking for big wishes and never did it, something that Queen Majesty didn't follow... There are reasons why there are few records of the time directly after her fall, let's just say that every living being in the world had to struggle with all their strength to survive.” She sighed “If any villains knew about the potential of the Gift of Wishes, they would seek it out, and that wouldn't have a good outcome. That is the reason why so much of the story has been obscured.”
She waited for a moment as they processed that, before moving on “But returning to the start, we know that Queen Majesty's power was a Gift, but the fact that they didn't have any way of dealing with her was true. So what did you think they decided to do?” She asked.
“You mean...?” Twilight got it first.
“Yes. They decided to try to create an artifact that would be the natural enemy of any Gifted. The best mages of the time came together and joined their knowledge to create it. And if you need any proof about how much Queen Majesty was feared, know that they even released Tirek from his prison on Tartarus so he could add his own knowledge of black magic to the task.” She waited for the six to recover from their shock “He obviously made it so the Staff couldn't be used against him, but even he was very determined to deny any chance Queen Majesty could have of escaping. He only betrayed the others (because of course he did, he is Tirek) after it had become completely certain that she was dead. But I'm getting ahead of myself.”
Celestia cleared her throat “This should answer why Nightmare Moon did things the way she did, but the Staff of Gift Control has some limitations. The biggest one is that it has a limited amount of effect unless you are close to the target. To get around that, the heroes used the power of the Staff to get Queen Majesty to move towards a trap. The same way, Nightmare Moon should have chosen to affect every pony with a powerful Gift in Ponyville with an urge to prepare themselves and go to a certain place, where she could take control of them... Though I don't know how Pinkie knew where to go.”
“Pinkie Sense.” She said.
“Okay. But here we get to an important part, everypony knew that the Staff was dangerous, specially after Tirek betrayed them and seized it for a bit, so it was decided that the Staff should be sealed and its existence should be a well-kept secret. This worked perfectly until now, to the point where I'm sure me and Luna should have been the only beings who knew where the Staff was, or that it ever existed in the first place (Tirek was fooled by the destruction of a fake Staff at one point). But you should be wondering one thing, if the Staff was so dangerous, then why wasn't it just destroyed? There were reasons for that.”
Twilight and Applejack stiffened.
“There's another part of the story I didn't mention. After Queen Majesty's death, the users of the Staff knew that another with the same power could appear in the future, like she inherited Twilight's Gift. So the Gift of Wishes was sealed, along with a few other Gifts that had too much destructive potential.”
“So... Does that mean that these dangerous Gifts are no longer sealed now that the Staff is broken?” Twilight asked in a small voice.
“No. They should still be sealed, since it was done in a way that even the wielders of the Staff wouldn't be able to unseal the Gifts easily, since that was too dangerous. However, this is something important to understand before the next part of the story. As I mentioned, due to Majesty's abuse of the Gift of Wishes, the world was in a fairly bad shape, and so it was decided that too many Gifted beings would cause too much chaos, and the Staff was used to suppress to appearance of new Gifts, to the point that in the generations since, there has only been a very limited number of Gifted in each generation.” She finished.
“And now, with it broken, there will be many new Gifted appearing.” Twilight said with finality “I'm sorry! I thought I was doing the right thing!”
Celestia swept her up in a hug “You were, my dear student. I do not blame you for your decision, for I would have probably done the same. Now that the existence of the Staff was exposed, it was simply too dangerous for it to remain.”
“But... But you said...” Twilight was confused.
“Yes. I'm sure this will lead to chaos. But the world is not as fragile as it was before. Millenia of work have made this society that won't fall to chaos easily, no matter what Discord tries. There will be a dangerous transition period as we adapt to this new era, but none of us will give up.” Celestia spoke with conviction.
“I definitely will do my best as Mare do Well!” Pinkie Pie said.
“And Ah will also help.” Applejack said.
“Indeed.” Rarity spoke “I never thought of becoming a heroine despite my powers because the heroes seemed to have things in hand, but if the world needs me, then there is no way I am going to stand by!”
“I agree with her.” Rainbow Dash spoke “For me it was more because I was more worried about controlling my power, but I'll do my best as Sonic Rainbow if I can help.”
“Ah... I-I will also do the same thing. I can't do nothing.” Fluttershy declared.
Twilight looked at them with a smile, and Celestia said “This should be the reason why you had to go to Ponyville, teaming up with this group of heroines.”
“Well, I'm game for a team, it's going to be great! But we need a good team name.” Pinkie said.
“I can help with that.” Celestia said “You were reunited with the goal of fighting back against the chaos, and from the dawn of time, there has always been one concept that was opposed to chaos, Harmony. Today, I declare you all the Harmony Six!”
“Meh.” Luna complained “That's lame. I think League of Harmony sounds better.”
“That could work too.” Celestia allowed.
Looking at the faces of the ponies, they could tell that the heroines approved of the name.
-0-
Some secrets were revealed, and the team has formed. But how will this decision impact the lives of the six? And how will their team up work? Wait for the answers on the next chapter of The League of Harmony! Ordinary Days 1.
I'll see you there!
Author's Note
I thought this chapter was going to be short. I underestimated just how much there was to talk about.
End of the first arc, and I hope you guys are excited for the story to really start.
Also, Foreshadowing!
Twilight woke up relatively early, at 06:00 AM. At first she was confused, not seeing what she expected, but then Twilight remembered that she had moved and was now living in the city of Ponyville. Yawning, she got up and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
Channeling power from her magic stones to use a telekinesis spell, Twilight grabbed the ingredients and tools that had already been previously prepared and made some food for herself. After eating, Twilight felt ready to take on the day.
Going back to her room, she activated the special formation that had been set up the previous day. It made a connection with a similar formation on Canterlot Castle, and teleported the work of that day towards Twilight.
As the first court mage, Twilight Sparkle was the highest authority on the matters of magic in Equestria. As such, all of her work was decidedly of the foremost importance. She started going through it with the ease of long practice. There were records of a runic formation designed to be used as part of the safety protocols of a particularly important dam, many other mages had already gone over it, but the importance of the project warranted Twilight to give a final check.
The mage analyzed the working, paying special attention to the power sources. Then she went over the data of the region, the location of the dam, the environmental analyses, biological analyses and the analyses of the magical traits of the region. She made a few simulations on her mind about how they would work together, and then used magic (again using her magic stones) to perform a few final simulations.
Satisfied, she gave her approval. Another case was the report of the analysis of a piece of the magical formulas inscribed upon an ancient magical artifact previously used by Grogar the Third. The research had been deemed far too dangerous to allow most researchers access to the artifact, and too time-consuming for the few researchers who could be considered trustworthy enough to handle on their own, so it was decided to separate the formulas into thousands of pieces so that each individual researcher did not have access to the full picture of what they were analyzing, and Twilight had the job of putting everything together.
She read the report and made a few notes of her own, mostly related to conceptual transposition, a type of magic so deep and difficult to understand that few mages in the world had the background necessary to understand her notes. The creator of that artifact was certainly a monster, but his genius couldn't be denied.
Another interesting thing were the most recent reports of the development of the anti-cutie mark removal spell. Twilight had developed the original version but the power drain was excessive on any pony who wasn't an alicorn, so the research group was trying to simplify it. Apparently, they had managed to create a series of runes that could be used to extend an area of effect protection, but the power drain was enough to make it unfeasible for anything except protecting critical areas so far. And so it went until it was finally time for lunch, with Twilight using the same magical formation as before to send the work she had already done back to the proper place.
Then, she went to the dining room, where Spike had already made the food.
“Good day.” She greeted him, in the same tired fashion she did in days following late night superhero excursions.
Spike answered her, and then the two fell into silence for a bit as they started on their respective meals.
“Anything interesting at work today?” Spike asked eventually.
“Same old. No emergency reports today, the interesting ongoing projects are still interesting and ongoing, no unexpected surprises on the usual projects… How about you? How goes the magic research?”
"Ah,” He smiled “I actually got some results. Adding a spiral matrix to the combination of energy fluxes actually makes the kinetic energy transference of spells smoother and easier to control!”
“Really? Then this means that...” And so the two started a lively conversation about spells variations using a combination of dragon and unicorn magic.
Twilight’s Gift was actually one that was shared with Spike, just as she could draw dragon magic from him, he could draw unicorn magic from her. This meant that Spike was in a fairly unique position of being able to help Twilight with the magic she had to do as Dragon Mage. The concepts they talked about weren’t that complicated, but being able to use a combination of dragon and unicorn magic was.
After all, dragon-pony hybrids were rare.
They talked while they were eating and even kept talking for a bit afterwards. Twilight didn’t need to talk about the things that had happened the previous day, since Celestia had already informed him, but Twilight still talked a bit about her impressions of the other heroines and about her excitement for today’s meeting.
Eventually they went back to their own things, Twilight working on the rest of the things she had to look over that day. By the time she finished, it was 2:13 PM. She usually did finish around this time, so this was nothing abnormal. Celestia wouldn't allow her to receive too much daily work, since it could hinder her heroic activities.
Everything done, she sent the rest of her work and proceeded to do something else that was usual for her, but most ponies did not know about. It started with doing the whole process to remove her magical seals and putting on her uniform.
After that, she used magic to draw a special teleport formation. It was special because it connected to a similar teleport formation in a place that very few ponies had the permission to enter.
Going into the formation, she activated it and it only took a few moments for the transport to be completed. The teleport formation she had drawn on her home was erased by the very magic used in the teleport, just as intended.
Her destination was a specific point within the catacombs under Canterlot. The whole area was restricted and under all sorts of anti-teleportation wards, but the special formation had been made in a way that could bypass those wards, so ponies with the appropriate security clearances (very few) could be able to teleport directly inside in case of emergency.
But Dragon Mage wasn't there because of an emergency, but because this was also the place she used to train.
The heroine walked through a few corridors until she got into a familiar area. It was far from the important places, it was empty and it was big enough to do some good testing. There were lots of scars on the floor, walls and ceiling from previous training sessions.
She got in the middle of it and stopped for a bit, trying to bring her concentration to the highest possible level before starting. And then she began.
For the first few minutes, Twilight went through some of her karate katas, making sure her body was in good condition and she could do them smoothly. Over time she accelerated her movements more and more, pushing her body to the limits. And the next step was the use of magic.
Twilight went through her standard spell arsenal, mixing them with the movements of the katas. She knew a lot of spells, but to simplify things and not get too bogged down on the options in the middle of a battle, Twilight kept a small list of spells for most situations she practiced to the point of being able to use them near-instinctively and that she always turned to first.
There were the standard blasting and shielding spells, which were combat spells modified to use big amounts of dragon magic to become stronger and faster. Those spells were very versatile in terms of power and other traits, and were the bread and butter of most of her combat options. For mobility, she had the dragon wings spell and her haste spell, as well as a teleportation spell, though that one was unsuited to anything but extremely short jumps, because it took too long otherwise.
Then there was her coverage for different situations. Earth shaping and wind manipulation because most battles would be fought in the presence of both of those elements, heat and cold spells because temperature control had nearly infinite uses, light and darkness spells to improve or hinder visibility. And then there were survival type spells, like breathing without air, equalizing pressure and blocking harmful substances, and a full suite of search-type spells, because information was power.
She had no need for strengthening or resilience-type spells because channeling her dragon magic through her body did a better job than any of those spells were capable off without extreme effort. (Of course, without her gift, trying to circulate dragon magic through her body would cause her to explode.)
Of course, even if those were her standard spells, it did not mean they were everything she would use, it just meant that if she needed to use other spells, it would not be as fast and precise as her normal ones, but frequently Twilight would do it, because it was the best thing to do on those circumstances. She was a genius mage and knew a lot of spells and could adapt them on the fly, so it would be a waste to not do it.
Going over all of that took quite a bit of time, because Twilight was weaving her spells into different parts of the katas and in different situations, making sure her level of proficiency with the spells was at the limit that she could do. Twilight stopped a bit to rest before her second round of training.
After that it was time to try to add to her arsenal. Twilight could use gravity spells, but making them viable as a combat tool for her standard spells was something completely different. There were questions of area of effect, power of effect and duration of effect that had to be observed, even before you got into variations like sideways gravity or reverse gravity. Being able to use exactly the right amount of power of gravity to stop her enemies without hurting them, and being able to choose the precise range to be able to hit them, and being able to do all that in an instant... That was what Twilight wanted her standard to be.
She did not have any problems mustering enough power for the higher levels of the spell, since she could use her dragon magic as a power source, but Twilight's problem was that she needed to make the calculations with extreme speed and precision in order to adapt the spells used to the specific situations she was faced with.
And in order to do that, Twilight had a very specific kind of training in mind. She used a spell to create a screen that would show different sizes and powers for her spells, and would choose them randomly. Twilight would just have to follow the instructions of the screen.
And so it was done. First she simply kept focusing on the screen, but later she began doing her katas and other spells at the same time as she looked, since in combat she would not get the chance to be completely without distractions when it came time to use the spells. For now she was just training the most basic increase gravity downwards version of the spell. She wanted to have that down before starting with more complicated stuff.
Eventually, the time came to 3:30 PM and Twilight had to finish things off. She had made some progress in her training, but she was still not satisfied enough with her mastery of the gravity spells to be able to truly make them part of her standard repertoire.
She then walked back through the passages and into the teleport formation, which she used as a focus for a normal teleport spell (since there was no other magic formation like that where she wanted to go), and teleported to the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, far enough from the center that the chaotic magic of the forest would not disrupt her teleportation.
She had to go to the first meeting of the League of Harmony.
-0-
Applejack's day started later than that of any other member of the family, at 07:00 AM. Granny Smith had insisted because Applejack often stayed up very late doing all the management work of the corporation. The earth pony had tried to argue, but Granny Smith had a lot more experience being stubborn than her.
After getting out of bed, Applejack went to the kitchen and made her breakfast, eating quite a bit more than usual due to the exertion of the previous day. Then she took a small walk around the house to wake herself up completely and stretch, and then she returned home and went to her office, where she fired up her computer.
It wasn't monday, which was the day she got the most amount of regular paperwork, but there were still a lot of things to look over: Reports, requests, and all of the other minutiae of running a corporation. They were all incredibly dry reads, because apparently that was a requirement for this kind of thing, and it was very tempting to skim things or skip around, but Applejack had not gotten to the point where she was known as the "self-made Apple of the business world" by doing less than her best in whatever work she was doing, so Applejack persevered. She had gotten used to it and had a better than working understanding of pretty much all the parts involved, from economics to legal wrangling.
Applejack efficiently worked her way through a figurative stack of work, thankful for the program that let her sort documents according to priority, based on a variety of factors. It had been a pain to implement, but had made things a lot smoother overall, and was the kind of initiative that had helped grow her business so much. She spent two and a half hours just doing that, and it was already 10:00 AM when she was finished, which was a good time.
After that, it was time for the part of the day she really wasn't looking forward to. Applejack send a message to three particular ponies asking to connect for a video conference and then waited.
Ten minutes later, Apple Fritter, Apple Pie and Golden Delicious were connected to her, and Applejack checked her webcam to make sure that all three could see her as clearly as she was seeing them. And not being able to delay anymore, Applejack took a deep breath and started talking:
"Ah'm sure ya're wondering why Ah'm calling ya three at the same time so suddenly."
There was a general noise of agreement from the three.
"The thing is... Some things came up, and Ah decided ta accelerate the plan to give ya three some of mah responsibilities." Applejack said honestly.
"What?!" "Are ya serious?" "Is this true?" All three of them reacted with incredulity.
"Yes, it is true." Applejack said patiently "Ah know we had a whole timeline for slowly getting ya all used ta the work ya'll be doing as top level managers. But some things moved faster than Ah expected, and now Ah will be really busy with some stuff related ta the Princesses with irregular hours... And so ya'll have ta step up in mah stead."
"What is this stuff with the princesses ya're talking about?" Golden Delicious asked.
"It's secret stuff. Ah can't really say nothing about it." Applejack answered.
They decided to let it drop in that case. And after that, even though the plan to pass the responsibilities to the three had already been discussed and accepted by them previously, there were still a lot of things to do. Not just remaking the timeline of management changes, but also questions about relative levels of authority on certain issues, and about how to change the pipeline so that the new work they were going to be doing got to them instead of Applejack having to redirect it herself...
There were a lot of things to decide, and Applejack ended up keeping the meeting going until 12:30 PM, and she knew that she would have some extra work in the next few weeks to make sure everything was working correctly.
Feeling hungry, Applejack went down to the kitchen and made lunch. She went to the dining room and saw that her brother was still there, so there was opportunity for a talk.
"How are things going?" She asked in between bites.
"Tough Cookie was ill today, so things were a little rough for the morning activities." He answered "And you?"
"Mostly the same old stuff, but Ah did set up things to get more free time." She said with a voice that only had a tiny bit of bitterness to it.
Applejack now had an important duty that took precedence over her work, but that didn't mean it was easy to change things like this.
"So... The meeting is today, right? Have ya decided when we gonna leave?" Big Mac asked.
"Ah think it should be around 3:45. Did ya make sure to leave time for it on the schedule?" Applejack said.
"Course."
Big Mac finished before her and left to go back to his work managing the workers, while Applejack ate the rest of her meal. Just after she was done, Applebloom got home from school.
"Big sis! Ya here!" Applebloom went over to give her sister a hug "Brother told me ya went out yesterday."
Applejack smiled at her and started telling the abridged version of her experiences in the previous day. Then she asked Applebloom what she had done that day. And the answer was that she made two new friends who hadn't gotten their cutie marks either and the three were planning on doing things together to try to earn their cutie marks. And it turned out that one of her friends was actually Sweetie Belle, Rarity's younger sister.
Applejack smiled at Applebloom's enthusiasm and wondered if the two would remain close friends in the future, like she and Rarity. But regardless of the outcome, it was good that she had good friends like that. Applejack remembered Mr. Rich talking excitedly about how his daughter's friend managed to cheer her up during a time where he didn't understand what she was going through and couldn't help.
Eventually, Applebloom went to her room, saying she wanted to prepare herself for "crusading", whatever that meant (It definitely wasn't the Ponyville Crusader brand of it). Then Applejack went back to her room and tried to figure out how the rest of her day would go. There were no meeting planned for that day, so she didn't need to use any of the Rarity dresses in her wardrobe. She didn't feel like going for an inspection in any of her businesses. Checking her timeline of work and issues revealed no particular points in her projects where she felt a need to intervene to keep things going smoothly.
Usually, in this kinds of situations Applejack would still try to find some work to do, even if it wasn't particularly important, but now she had new responsibilities and it was better to get started while she had a relatively free day.
So Applejack got down into the basement of the house. Once there, she moved two particular loose planks to reveal bare earth. Then she concentrated and shifted into the Crusader.
It was always a shocking feeling, to suddenly go from her normal self into the powerful crusader form. Not only did she feel an immense amount of power due to her connection with the land, but she also had her senses increased to a horrifying level. They were so sharp that Applejack was certain there had to be some kind of special function to prevent her from being overwhelmed by her own senses, probably part of the all-around protection she seemed to have.
Still, she had things to do, so Applejack dug a hole on the earth (it was pretty easy with the crusader powers) then she got inside and reached out to put the planks back. Then she got to moving through the earth, making sure to collapse the earth behind her to leave no traces. Soon she was in total darkness, but her enhanced senses allowed her to move forward easily despite that.
She moved below the earth, going in the direction of the Everfree Forest. She had a very specific place to go in mind, and it didn't take all that long to get there, since she was moving at a fairly high speed.
The place in question was in fact a clearing. A place where generations of Crusaders had trained in order to master their powers and the effect of all that made that specific part of the forest completely free from the influence of the nearby chaos magic as well as the threat of any of the creatures of the forest.
And this time, Applejack herself would join in the line of ponies who made use of that clearing.
She really needed it. Applejack had barely had any time to practice her new powers before becoming involved on the Nightmare Moon incident, and while her level of skill in the Crusader powers was enough to help, she had barely scratched the surface of what those abilities could do.
Take the time where she followed Nightmare Moon's teleport. Applejack had no idea how she had done that and how she could repeat the feat. Asking her brother or grandmother wouldn't work either, both of them had explained that every Crusader had different skills and had to learn how to use them by themselves. Everything was based around energy manipulation, and some of those things were easy to get, like applying power to increase offence and defense, but something like teleporting was far different from that, and she had only done it one time by instinct.
But training on something like that would probably have to be a long term project, so Applejack decided to start with mastering her ability to step on air, which she had used a few times during that incident but that would definitely be very useful were she to really learn to use it perfectly.
And so, Applejack started leaping into the air and then trying to push off the air itself in order to jump again. At the beginning, she barely managed to get any propulsion from her air steps, but after just a bit of practice, she managed to reach a point where she could solidify the air enough to get a good boost. The next problem after that was mastering how much strength she had to use to get the distance she wanted, and that part was a lot harder.
Time passed, and Applejack switched from jumping too far and not jumping far enough, too high and not high enough and slowly started getting used to the level of strength she needed to apply. Eventually she got to a point where she was somewhat comfortable with her skill (though she would definitely keep training to really master things) and Applejack decided to switch up her training for the moment.
She thought about trying some more acrobatic stuff, like jumping backwards and spinning, and doing all sorts of movements to be able to navigate through the complex city streets easily, but then Applejack decided that this could be done later. Instead, she realized that there was a much more pressing need that she had to fulfill. The Ponyville Crusader needed some kind of ranged attack.
Applejack spent the next several minutes trying to make something work. At first she thought of making blasts like the ones Dragon Mage was capable of using, but no matter what she did, she could only make the energy on her hooves form a spike instead of launching itself. That would be useful for close combat, but it wasn't what she was looking for.
Eventually, Applejack decided to change her approach and that was when she struck gold. The mare thought about a grenade, charging energy into one of her hooves and then throwing it.
"BOOOM!" And it exploded.
It hadn't gone very far but Applejack was already happy with the progress. She thought about continuing with the training but then realized that it was already time to go to the meeting. So she went back home to pick up Big Mac.
-0-
Rainbow Dash woke up at 07:30 AM, like she did every day. After finishing her morning routine, the pegasus flew to the cloud office of weather management of Ponyville, which was located above the third block of commercial zone of the city. This was something she did everyday, and Dash was quite capable of doing her route entirely by memory.
Reaching inside, she looked at the weather program for the day and the several daily tasks on the board. The weather management system in Ponyville was slightly unusual, in which it was actually divided in two parts. The first part was the general weather program, which the daily workers followed to manage the general weather of the day, as expected. While the second part was the daily task system, in which workers completed more specific weather workings, and every worker could choose what task they would do in each day, having an immense amount of freedom. However, they still had to know the general weather so they wouldn't interfere with it unknowingly.
This system dated back to when the city of Ponyville truly was only a village and didn't need quite the strict weather management it now worked under. Regardless of why, this was something that Rainbow Dash took advantage off, in order to have enough free time to try and bring her powers under control.
Rainbow Dash looked for a suitable task to do for the day, and finally decided upon a simple cloud manipulation job, where she would have to move and congregate clouds to certain parts of the sky in order to rearrange the shade levels on the city and prepare for future rains.
Stamping the task on the board to mark her acceptance, Rainbow Dash flew out of the office and went to the closest point of interest. She moved quickly but carefully, making sure to avoid disturbing any of the other weather magic workings that were already in effect around the city. Her speed was definitely fast, but she deliberately kept herself from going too fast, since there was always a chance she would lose control of her powers if she did that.
Rainbow Dash started moving around clouds and condensing them together, while also pulling moisture out of the air to reduce humidity. She flew around all the needed areas while only taking a few brief pauses to rest, for while her work definitely wasn't very time-sensitive, Dash preferred to have it done early to be able to relax while doing her training (and also because she didn't want to leave a chance for herself to have to work in a time crunch and accidentally go too fast).
At around 11:30 AM, Rainbow Dash was putting the finishing touches on the last part of the work when she was startled by a sudden voice:
"Rainbow."
"Ah!" She crossed her forelegs and turned around, but then relaxed.
She had recognized the pony who spoke, he was actually Cloud Whirl, a pegasus stallion with a black coat and gray mane as well as a paper cutie mark. He was Rainbow Dash's superior in her job, since he was the top weather supervisor of the Ponyville team.
"Mr. Cloud? What did you want?" She asked politely. Rainbow Dash didn't know what could be his reason for talking to her, but he did not seem angry or worried, so she supposed it should not be anything serious.
"Relax, there is nothing wrong." He said calmly "I was just wondering if you'd like a promotion."
"A promotion?" Rainbow Dash was surprised "Was there a new opening? And why me?"
He nodded "Yes, there is a new opening for weather manager, as for why you..." He looked at her seriously "You work hard and are motivated, and you care enough about the big picture to avoid problems with weather interference. I think you would be perfect for the job."
Rainbow Dash looked at him and thought for a moment "Ah. Does that job mean I would get busier?" She asked.
He nodded "Yes, the work of a supervisor involves long hours of both checking effects and doing paperwork."
That settled it "I'm sorry." She shook her head and smiled sadly "But the biggest attraction this job has for me is leaving a lot of free time." She flapped her wings demonstratively "I'm training to join the wonderbolts someday!"
'And I'll also need time to work as a superheroine' She thought.
"Well..." He started "It's a shame, but if you are really certain about your decision, then I will just have to find somepony else."
She nodded "I'm really sure."
"All right then. I'll try and think of somepony else." He said, and flew off.
Rainbow Dash watched it for a few moments and went back to her work. There really wasn't much left, so it didn't take long before she could go back to the office and mark her task as concluded. At that point she was really feeling hungry, so Rainbow Dash flew back home and took out one of her instant meals, which she made and then ate.
Sighing in satisfaction, Rainbow Dash left her home and did the same thing she had done a lot of times ever since she was twelve years old, Rainbow Dash flew off into the mountains and after looking around to see if there was anypony around, she went down and entered an almost invisible crevice where she was forced to walk since there was barely any space to go through. Moving through that crevice, she finally reached the hidden valley that was her destination.
Rainbow Dash sighed and then set her face in a look of determination, then she took off much faster than she had while still in the city, and she just kept accelerating. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings hard and forced her aerokinesis to reduce the air pressure in front of her and also push her forward. She had always felt a secret thrill on those secret training sessions, where she could push herself as hard as she could without worrying about being seen.
Rainbow Dash kept accelerating, and it didn't take long for her to notice something... strange.
'I am so fast and yet... no reaction from the power...'
She felt a flash of hope that she ruthlessly suppressed. There wasn't time to think about those kinds of things, she could still go a lot faster, and she had suffered disappointments so many times because of it that Rainbow Dash almost didn't expect success.
She kept going faster, always mentally prepared for needing to prevent her power from activating automatically, always mentally prepared for the discomfort of an ability that she couldn't fully control.
And yet... nothing.
Rainbow Dash was finding it hard to avoid feeling hope, despite her fear of disappointment. She kept going faster and faster, forcing herself more and more in an almost reckless manner.
Eventually, she found a barrier. It was like a rule of the world itself that tried to prevent her from going faster. Rainbow Dash kept pushing... And the barrier bounced her backwards, flying uncontrollably.
She had hit the sound barrier. The barrier that none without Gifts had ever surpassed. And she had not felt even a trace of discomfort. The power was now completely within her control.
Rainbow Dash landed on a cloud and though hard about it, and she felt that this must have been due to her using her ability so much in the previous day.
Regardless, the why didn't matter. Rainbow Dash cried in happiness within the valley.
-0-
Fluttershy woke up at 06:00 AM. After doing her usual morning routine, she went around the areas of her animal shelter, making an inspection that had also become routine. For most ponies, this would take a while, because there were a lot of areas in the shelter with a lot of animals and a lot of little things to look at, Fluttershy on the other hand...
"Hello, Mr. Snuggles, are you all okay there?" Fluttershy asked a big brown bear.
The bear growled, and Fluttershy could understand that he was saying something about how some of the specialized rations were running out.
"Okay, I'm going to put in an order for more of those, they should get here later tonight. Make sure to warn the others that I am going to be busy meeting some friends starting at four."
He nodded, and Fluttershy went back to her rounds. Since she could understand the animals, she could simply trust them to inform her of things she needed to worry about, though every two weeks she did her own special inspection, just to make sure she wasn't getting rusty.
Fluttershy was pretty much the sole worker of the shelter (which had been left to her care after the previous caretaker, Magic Bunch, died), and she rarely needed to hire part time workers to help with things, since some of the most trustworthy and smart animals could handle a lot of the maintenance tasks such as cleaning and handing out food.
The fact that she only took an hour to inspect every single separate part of the shelter was proof enough of how handy her ability with animals was.
After she was certain that everything was fine on the shelter, Fluttershy went back home and prepared breakfast for herself, it was just something simple, because she had to leave soon, but she still enjoyed it. Then she grabbed her saddlebag and checked it to make sure everything was in order before turning to her pet.
"Okay, Angel, watch the house while I'm away." She told her bunny, and left.
Fluttershy flew through the city at a speed that would put the idea of an old pegasus in the mind of any watcher. She wasn't a big fan of flying, but she had always made an effort of it in order to support her friend Rainbow. And it was just an ordinary day, if there were any emergencies, she would take a bus or something.
It didn't take all that long to reach her destination. It was the veterinary clinic Yellow Sunrise, one of her usual working spots.
Fluttershy had obtained a veterinarian license years before, but she really couldn't stay all day in a clinic while she had to run the shelter (not to mention her... other interests), so over time she became a kind of freelance veterinary, going to clinics every day to help with stuff, and more importantly, her ability to understand animals made her specially well suited to dealing with cases of possible animal abuse or problems that were not immediately obvious (since she could ask how the animals were feeling).
Thankfully, animal abuse cases were rare.
"Hello, Miss Sparkle." Fluttershy greeted the owner of that particular clinic "Is there anything you want my help with?"
"Ah, Fluttershy." Aurora Sparkle (no relation to Twilight Sparkle, despite the similar names) "Actually, yes. We have a hamster that was dropped off here by the owners because he's sick, but I didn't manage to figure out what was wrong. Ah, and if you could also give him a bath as well...?"
"You can leave it to me." Fluttershy assured her.
The hamster was a particularly cute white and orange specimen (his name was Mouthful), but simply talking to him didn't help a lot. The poor guy was somewhat listless, and the only thing he said was that he was feeling pain in his stomach.
So, Fluttershy reached into her saddlebag and took out one of her inventions. It looked for all the world like a common stethoscope, but it was actually a very advanced instrument Fluttershy had designed in order to be able to check the insides of certain delicate or hard to open objects. The pegasus had quickly figured out that it could be useful for her veterinarian work, so she did a few modifications to the original design in order to make it easier to use, and disguised it as an ordinary stethoscope (it even worked like one, if you didn't know the trick, a part that Fluttershy was particularly proud of).
Fluttershy used the "stethoscope" to check on the hamster's stomach, and it used special lasers to go through the body and analyze it, before sending the information to her by sending images directly into her eyes. It didn't take long for her to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, Mouthful had accidentally swallowed a big piece of rubber, possibly from an eraser, and it was causing problems.
Sighing in relief that it wasn't anything serious, she informed Aurora of the problem and gave a little medication for the hamster to help. After that, she gave a bath to him, and told him the good news, which immediately made him more cheerful.
Then, after saying goodbye to Aurora, she flew off for her next stop.
A few hours passed in much the same vein, with Fluttershy visiting several different clinics and even making a few house calls (only for ponies she knew personally), and thankfully, there were no emergencies or other unexpected things (except when she was asked to give a bath to a very dirty dog, who turned out to actually be a fox underneath all the mud). And Fluttershy made a few stops on the way to get some food to eat, since she liked to have a bunch of small meals everyday.
She finally got back home at two in the afternoon, and checked out the animals again to see if something unexpected had happened. However, everything seemed peaceful, so she went off to do the next thing on her schedule, and took out some things she had bought while on the way back.
It was a bunch of packets of instant food, because she was the one who was going to host the meeting of the League of Harmony, so she had to prepare food, and using instant food was the easiest way to do it.
There were several different kinds of instant food, not just to match the palates of several ponies, but also to allow her to prepare several different types at once. Some had to be microwaved, others put in boiling water and etc. With some help from Angel, everything was ready remarkably quickly, and she put the food in special containers to maintain the heat before carrying it to the lab.
The last thing that had to be done was clearing out some space and preparing things to receive other ponies. Fluttershy was in the middle of it when she realized that she was humming. She was having a lot of fun. It was the first time she was going to be receiving so many ponies in her house at once. Usually, it was only Rainbow Dash who visited her.
Shaking the thought off, Fluttershy finished the last of the preparations and realized that she still had some time to herself, given that it was only three in the afternoon, so she went to work on another pressing problem.
Going to the workshop, Fluttershy stopped near a raised platform, and sitting on top of it was her Chimera Armor.
Fluttershy patted the lion head of the armor and said that it had done a good job. She was very satisfied with the performance of the armor in the first time it had been involved in actual combat, but it was not so strange, considering that she had been working on the various systems of the armor on and off since childhood, and gone through quite a lot of iterations.
It hadn't been perfect, but being able to have such a great performance against a villain of the caliber of Nightmare Moon was something to be proud of.
There were things she wanted to add or change (there always were), but most of them were either long term projects, too situational to be a priority or some other similar problem. No, the real goal of her current work was simply fixing the armor from the damage it had received in the fight of the previous day.
After returning home, Fluttershy had put the armor under the sight of quite a lot of sensors and left them working overnight to diagnose every possible problem with it.
Looking at the data, Fluttershy nodded. Things were more or less how she expected. Nightmare Moon's attack had pierced through three of the five layers of rigid armor, but the force had been redirected away from crucial systems by the way the armor was designed. A lot of connections and mobility gears had been broken, but the Armor had been designed with redundancy in mind, so it still managed to operate at a high percentage of the maximum even with those parts destroyed.
By far, the biggest problem were the vibrations of the attacks that had passed through the armor and caused microfractures across the entire thing. They weren't at a level that would be a problem at that point, but it certainly wasn't something she wanted to just leave as it was. So Fluttershy was planning to make a special chamber that would spread gaseous metal (changed into that state via magical processes) which would bond with a special coating put in the microfractures (which would be a whole other process) and then solidify, fixing everything up.
However, this was another thing that would take a while and wasn't a priority, so Fluttershy grabbed her machining equipment and started fixing up the obvious damage.
It wasn't a particularly concentration heavy type of work, only removing and replacing damaged plates and other types of parts as well as making sure everything was set correctly before fixing everything in place with her special coating, so Fluttershy let her mind wander while she did her work, thinking about what they would talk about during the meeting as well as brainstorming ideas for new inventions designed specifically for hero work.
Fluttershy used a small voice recorder to take notes of her thoughts, and time went by fast. She had already finished most of the maintenance when the alarm suddenly ringed and Fluttershy realized it was almost time for the meeting. Making a last note about what there was left to do, Fluttershy got ready to receive her visitors.
-0-
Pinkie Pie's day started early. She woke up 05:30 AM and left her room in the second floor of Sugarcube Corner, going to the kitchen in the back of the store. She looked at the note saying the amounts of respective products that had to be made for the day.
The next half hour was spent in a culinary haze. Pinkie had done that so many times that she honestly could have finished things with her eyes closed and without using her Pinkie Sense. Singing quietly as to not disturb the Cakes, she made batter and dough with an efficiency comparable to machines, moving so fast that she was actually leaving afterimages. The same went with pouring the completed portions in the molds and putting them in the ovens.
She wasn't actually creating all the day's stock. The Cakes would also make a lot of baked goods, with a particular emphasis on the “daily special” which was where they showed their creativity in baking. Still, it was a lot of things, and Pinkie needed all that speed to be able to finish doing the frosting and other final preparations on everything and putting the products on display before 06:30 AM.
That was when Mr and Mrs Cake came down to open the store, and they alternated working the register and baking, but by that point Pinkie had already moved on to the next part of the day.
The baking was something she did almost every day, but the rest of her schedule was flexible, yet demanding. That day saw her going back to her room and seeing what messages had been left on her email. The first priority was a request for planning a birthday party, so Pinkie started a rough plan based on what few details the e-mail had given (age, gender and preferences of the subject) and sent an e-mail asking for a few more details, like preferences about venues and which number of guests could be expected.
Next she opened another message from a business group that was planning a special event for their employees. Apparently they weren't satisfied with the budget she had worked out and wanted to cut a few “minor things”. Pinkie sighed and thought about her finances and whether she could supplement the budget herself. Then she wrote a revised budget and sent it with another message that contained a recommendation to use the previous budget because the “minor things” were important.
Apart from that, there was also a message from Greenie, a young researcher who was working on soil analysis, saying that he had lost his job and needed help because he didn't know how he could keep paying for his apartment. Pinkie thought about options near where he lived and decided on several possibilities.
After that, it was already 07:30 AM. Pinkie went out and walked to block C of the residential zone, the place Greenie lived. Moving around, she talked with several store owners about the possibility of hiring somepony. She struck out four times, but on the fifth attempt, in a small, family owned clothing store called “Collander's”, she managed to get an assurance that they would have a job available if somepony came looking.
After that it was already 09:00 AM, so Pinkie went to a local waffle house to eat breakfast.
“So, how are things going, Pinkie?” The owner of the waffle house, Periwinkle, asked her while she was eating.
“Same as always. Baking, setting up parties, trying to get people to smile...” Pinkie answered truthfully, although leaving out a lot of details.
“That's nice.”
And the conversation went on, with Pinkie asking about his family (he had a daughter who was fourteen that year) and how business was going (everything was fine). After that, Pinkie went to Greenie's apartment and knocked on the door.
“Who's this?” He asked.
“It's Pinkie Pie! You sent a message about needing a job!” She explained.
He opened the door “Do you have something?” He asked in an almost pleading voice.
“Of course! Pinkie here checked around, and Collander's will have a place for you.” She assured him.
“Are you serious...? I was just... How can I thank you for that?” He had tears in his eyes.
“Just give me a smile!” She ordered. He complied with a little awkwardness.
“Good. How is your research going, by the way?” She asked.
Talking about research got him excited, and Pinkie heard a lecture about recent trials and experiments, and how he still hadn't reached a high enough sample size to be able to publish his findings as an actual research paper.
By the time he got tired, it was already 10:00 AM, and Pinkie Pie decided to go to Ponyville General Hospital. It was a place she visited once in a while, never setting a specific schedule but appearing often enough that she could be called a common sight. Pinkie nodded to Nurse Redheart when they passed each other in the corridors, in their own secret sign.
After that, she went on with her visit, going to the foal's ward and entertaining them with magic tricks, songs and small games. It was a thing she liked to do, but she didn't have a set schedule or anything, only showing up once in a while when she felt it had been a while since the last time.
After recharging herself with the smiles of the foals, Pinkie left and walked around until she found Redheart again and the two walked into a storage room to have a conversation in privacy.
“What do you have to tell me?” The nurse asked.
“Something amazing happened last night!” Pinkie spoke quickly “I went out as usual, and Cruzie was there as well (or at least the new Cruzie), but there was also Magey from Canterlot and three others who were going out for the first time and there was a whole thing with a biiiiiiig problem but we were all awesome and we even got to meet Sunny and we decided to become a real team!”
Redheart was already used to Pinkie's nonstop way of speaking, but she still had to take a moment to understand all the things she had hidden through the code the two were used to using.
“So, a team, huh? Does this mean you'll have an easier time?”
“I might still need your help once in a while. But things have gotten much better than before, actually! There are a few things we should have a real conversation about later and that is included.” Pinkie said.
Redheart nodded. She was always worried about Pinkie's injuries, and it seemed there was something to be discussed about it in a more private place. They scheduled a place and time to meet on the next day, and then Pinkie Pie said goodbye and left.
By that point, it was already 12:00 PM, time for lunch, so Pinkie went back home and ate with the Cakes. During that time, she finally had the chance to explain to them what had happened the previous night.
“... And now I'm feeling so much better! I mean, I wasn't feeling bad at all before, but now it's like 'Pinkie, you have to move! You can jump and reach the sky!'” She threw her hooves to the air in emphasis “and we set up a meeting later today in Fluttershy's secret lab and isn't it just amazing that one of my new friends has a secret lab? I usually only get inside secret labs when I'm trying to destroy them, but I'll have to contain my instincts today and by the way did the customers like the specials?” She asked eagerly.
“Yes, they did.” Mr. Cake said patiently “It also seemed like you did good in baking today, the customers seemed to think the normal treats were tastier than usual.”
“They did? Amazedayze!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“I think the issue of this being a new era of superpowers certainly will cause a lot of problems, so it's good that you are already planning things out and have a connection to the princesses.” Mrs. Cake made her comment “I imagine that she would gather Gifted ponies to do something like that eventually, so this may have just made things proceed faster.”
Pinkie smiled. Mrs. Cake was really smart.
The lunch proceeded and by the time it was over the clock was already showing the time of 1:00 PM. It was almost time for the next thing she had to do, so Pinkie left Sugarcube Corner and walked to the block C of the residential zone of Ponyville.
A house had recently been bought there, and the finally would finally move into the house that day. Pinkie got there at 1:30 PM, just in time to help the working crew and family with putting the furniture in place.
“Ah, Pinkie, how are you doing?” One of the workers, an earth pony stallion named Easy Step greeted the mare when he saw her.
“Just doing what I can.” Pinkie answered “Speaking of that, do you want some help?”
He smiled “Well, if you're offering...”
And that was that, Pinkie helped the working crew with putting all the pieces of furniture in their proper places. The family was surprised to see a new pony appear and begin to help so suddenly, but given that the working crew clearly knew this Pinkie Pie, they accepted it.
In the process, Pinkie talked with the members of the family and managed to learn their names and situation.
The clear chief of the house was the pegasus mare White Night, who had decided on their move to Ponyville by accepting a teaching position in Ponyville's Red Advanced Flying School, where she would teach the finer points of weather control. Her wife was a unicorn called Frozen Life who worked making and selling ice cream independently. There was also White's brother, Red Night, a pegasus who was currently unemployed, but used to be part of the weather team in Neighfornia, where they lived before. Finally, there was the adopted daughter Star Heart, an earth pony who was only six years old and didn't have a cutie mark yet.
Once everything was done, Pinkie talked with White “It was nice to meet you. If you need any help, or there's something you want to know, you can send me a message.” She gave her a piece of paper with the correct address and then left.
After that, it was already two and a half, so she went back to Sugarcube Corner and greeted Orange Leaf, the earth pony who worked the register for the afternoon shift. She grabbed a muffin to have a quick bite while she talked a little bit with the other mare about how the work was going. And then it was time to suit up.
Pinkie again went to one of the more hidden and calm places in the neighborhood and changed to her Mare Do Well outfit. Then she finally relaxed her muscles.
That was something she did in alternate days, as a way of keeping herself in the best possible shape at all times. It had been an exercise fad a few years back, “Train while you're working! Train while you're playing! With the Magical Muscle Manipulation Method! The 4M!”. It was an instructional booklet that taught any ponies to be able to use their own magic to stimulate their muscles and train.
It didn't last for very long, because the results weren't any better than just exercising normally, unless you trained quite a lot on the method, and even then it wasn't much better. But the worst part was that, while it was said that you could train while doing other things, thus making it useful, in practice the level of concentration needed to train correctly made it fairly difficulty to try doing anything else. Still, Pinkie thought it could help, and over the years she had mastered the method to the point where she could use it almost without thinking.
And she was fairly excited about today's exercise, because the healing she had gotten from Celestia meant that Pinkie's physical abilities had a marked increase. She had already been pretty much at a level of fitness that usually only the highest level professional athletes reached, but now Pinkie imagined that her physical prowess had reached an entire new level.
And she was pretty excited to test her new capabilities.
So the first thing she did after suiting up was climbing onto the nearest building. And then she started to run. Jumping from building to building, running on walls with the help of her climbing spikes (using earth pony magic to prevent the walls from being damaged) and shooting her grappling hook to swing across the city.
Those were all things she always did, and Pinkie knew Ponyville enough that she could navigate even with her eyes closed and without using her Pinkie Sense (yes, same as baking), but that wasn't what she was trying to do, so she kept her eyes open. Instead, Mare Do Well forced herself further and further, jumping distances she had never been able to, standing on a single leg at a high ledge to take her strength to the limit, forcefully stopping herself from high-speed movements in ways she had never dared to in order to test her resilience...
Pinkie spent half an hour just familiarizing herself with the new capabilities of her body, and she loved every second.
Still, fun had to stop sometime, and during her travel through the city, she had seen a huge sign hanging off a window of a building.
'MY SON IS MISSING, PLEASE HELP'
'So Tempest Green is missing...' Mare Do Well, thought.
It was the traditional way of requesting help from the Mysterious Mare Do Well, and she wouldn't let anypony down.
Focusing on her Pinkie Sense, and on the mental image of the sign, Do Well let herself be guided through the city. And it didn't take long before she got a hit. It was in Green Park, a natural park that stood at the edges of the commercial zone. It was a place with a lot of ponies, but Do Well ended up going to a part of it that didn't have many of them.
It was one of the zones with deep vegetation. They weren't very big, but there was a fair amount of them, and while moving through the trees, Do Well eventually started hearing some low cries.
Moving a little bit forward, she found a small hole that was almost completely concealed by vegetation, and inside that hole was a small unicorn foal.
“help...” He spoke, his voice still weak but having gained some power from hearing a pony nearby.
“Don't worry. Mare Do Well is here to rescue you.” She said, and shoved herself down into the hole, before carefully grabbing the foal and putting him on her back with her magic. One of his legs was broken, and he was full of scratches, some of them fairly deep. She made her way back out of the hole.
“Thank... you...” Tempest Green said.
“Do you know the number of your house?” She asked.
She was moving back towards Ponyville General, the closest hospital from there. The colt spoke slowly and she wrote it in a piece of paper from a small notebook, all without taking either her pen, or the notebook from her mane, just by using her magic.
Soon, Mare Do Well had burst into the entrance of the hospital and gotten the attention of a nurse (not Redheart, a pegasus stallion called Callid Noise). She gave the unicorn to the nurse along with the piece of paper with the number.
“Call his mother to tell her the good news.” She said simply, before leaving.
After that, it was almost 4:00 PM, but Pinkie still had a little bit of time. So she swung near the back of the police station and looked at a certain window, which was the window of the office of the chief of police, Lightning Clash.
The flag in that window was on the left side instead of the right, meaning that the chief didn't want a meeting with Do Well. So she simply changed her direction and started moving towards the Everfree Forest.
-0-
Rarity woke up feeling a faint sensation of pain all over her entire body.
'I guess this is to be expected, considering how much I've used my Gift.'
She had always known that using her power put a burden on her body, ever since her first tests with them so long before, but it was the first time she felt what it was like when she used her power seriously.
Still, it took only a few minutes for Rarity to get used to the pain and get up from her bed. She went to make breakfast, since Sweetie Belle wasn't staying in her home at that moment (she would come later that day), so she didn't have to help the unicorn filly prepare for her classes.
After eating, Rarity went to her workshop and looked over her current projects. Thankfully, there was nothing particularly time critical going on, so Rarity didn't have to rush as she went from one piece of clothing to another, trying different combinations of colors and styles for the ones she still hadn't quite finished the design, while weaving things together to finish the work of those she had.
The pain started fading slowly throughout the day, and the work put Rarity in a good mood, so she was humming while she worked on her dresses. This even put her on the idea of a new design, which Rarity began solidifying at the same time as she did her regular work.
Eventually, she got tired, and having gotten through a good amount of the work that had been piling up, she decided that it was already enough for that day, and made a note about what she should work on first the next time.
After that, Rarity put a bit of food for her cat, Opalescence, and went to make a meal for herself. Except that she actually cooked for two ponies, given that Sweetie Belle would be coming to her house after school and would definitely be feeling hungry.
It was relatively early in the day, so Rarity took her time instead of rushing through the preparations. And her sense of timing was exquisite, as only two minutes had passed from the time she finished cooking to the time that Sweetie Belle arrived.
"Hello, sis!" The filly ran over to her and hugged her.
"Hello, Sweetie Belle, I hope you're hungry, because I have just made some food."
"Uh-Huh!"
The two of them went to the kitchen to get their food, and then went to the table to eat. Sweetie Belle spoke a lot, clearly excited:
"... and then we decided to call ourselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders and search for our cutie marks together!" She finished the story and put some more food in her mouth,
Apparently, it had happened during classes earlier that day. Sweetie Belle had made friends with two other fillies her age that also hadn't earned their cutie marks yet, and one of them was actually Applebloom, Applejack's little sister.
Considering that first, the two were now together on the same team, and second, now their sisters were friends, Rarity imagined that she would be spending a lot more time with Applejack in the future, in contrast with recent months, in which the two were far too busy to maintain contact with any regularity.
Speaking of that, she had already arranged for Sweetie Belle to spend the night on Applejack's house (Granny Smith had promised to take care of them) given that she would be busy in a meeting of the newly formed League.
"Do you think Scootaloo would be able to go on the sleepover with you two?" Rarity asked her sister.
"Ah, that is a good idea!" Sweetie exclaimed "Wait a minute, I'll go call her!"
Rarity smiled as Sweetie ran out of the dining room and went to the phone. She went back to eating peacefully, and as promised, Sweetie Belle came back fairly quickly... Except that she had a strange expression on her face.
"Sister... That meeting you are going to... Does it have anything to do with your Gift?" She asked.
"Ah- How did you get that idea?!" Exclaimed Rarity, slightly panicked.
"I saw the marks on your costume." Sweetie said, deadpan "And for that matter, I saw the costume."
Rarity placed her head on the table "What a blunder... I forgot to hide it before I went to sleep."
"So... What is going on?"
"I can tell you, but you have to promise that you won't tell anypony about it, not even your friends."
"I promise." Sweetie said solemnly.
"Okay, how do I start...?"
And so Rarity told Sweetie about the things that had happened on the previous day. She very deliberately left out the identities of the other heroes, saying that it was their secret to keep or share, but she explained mostly everything else, including the fact that many more Gifts would appear in the world from them on, which was the reason why the six had decided to join up and become a team.
After it was over, Sweetie Belle said she wanted to go out to meet with her new friends and Rarity allowed it, going to grab her costume and try to find a safe place to hide it.
After thinking for a while, Rarity had an idea. She manipulated the threads to separate the costume into five parts, and then wove some extra bits of fabric and jewels on each part, in such a way that she could remove the extras and fuse the costume together quickly when the need arose. And outside of that situation, the separate parts of the costume would not seem strange in any way in the middle of her workshop.
That pressing task complete, Rarity went back to her room and took out a notebook.
If she was going to be a superheroine, that meant she needed to do her best, and that meant trying out things, making experiments and looking for new things. Specifically, she was thinking about some of the Gemstones she had tested while making her costume and declared useless for her purposes. It was fairly possible that some of them could actually be useful with a little bit of thought or some training, since a few of them had abilities she hadn't entirely understood while testing, and could have hidden potential.
Besides that, there was the fact that there were many different types of gemstones. So many that there were several she hadn't been able to get, and thus she still didn't know of their abilities.
So, she got to work. Rarity listed what she knew about every gemstone she had "in reserve" so to speak, as well as every single gemstone she hadn't been able to find that she could remember. This was connected to something else that she decided to do. Both Dragon Mage and Mysterious Mare Do Well were experienced heroes, so they would definitely have a lot of suggestions and ideas about how to use the esoteric abilities and which types of skills she should try to develop.
Rarity ended up getting a little too much into this whole process, since imagining ways she could use her abilities was similar to imagining ways certain colors and patterns could go together in certain situations. As such, she lost track of time, and only the telephone suddenly ringing made the unicorn look up and realize that it was already almost time to leave for the meeting.
"Sister!" It was Sweetie Belle on the phone "I'm just calling to say that the three of us are already here on Appleblooms house!"
"Okay, Sweetie! Have fun with your friends!" It was a short conversation.
Grabbing a quick bite and storing the pages she had written inside her costume, Rarity put it back together and dressed herself as Gemstone once again.
-0-
Fluttershy spoke a small but complex code phrase, and the program accepted it and sent a command to a particular part of her extended base. That command made a part of the ground that was surrounded by trees move to the side to reveal a hidden hatch, along with a blinking red light.
The members of the newly formed League of Harmony had decided that the best place to have their first meeting was inside Fluttershy's secret lab, so she had told them the approximate location of a convenient entrance and opened it, along with putting that sign to make it easier for them to find (though Rainbow Dash didn't need the help, having visited Fluttershy's lab several times in the past).
Besides Sonic Rainbow, the first one to find the passage was the Ponyville Crusader, because even though the beacon light could only be seen from above and she didn't have the ability to fly, Ponyville Crusader's senses were good enough to detect the opening based just on the sound of the air, given that she already knew the general location.
After that, the Mysterious Mare do Well, Dragon Mage and Gemstone arrived in sequence, and Fluttershy, who could see them arriving through a hidden camera in the opening, spoke another small code phrase to cover up the hatch again.
The entrance the members of the league had used was one of Fluttershy's exit tunnels, and it spiraled downwards a good bit before coming back up in a ramp that led directly to the workshop section of Fluttershy's laboratory (she had emergency doors that could be used to block the tunnel in case of unwelcome guests, but obviously they were not active at that time).
Fluttershy was waiting next to the entrance, and as the other heroines started arriving, they joined her in waiting for the rest of the group while making small talk. And it didn't take long at all, with every single member arriving in a short period of time and taking off their costumes (and similar). And when Ponyville Crusader arrived, she showed one of the powers the Crusader was known for, the ability to carry other ponies and protect them inside their body (which did something involving space, because it was possible to carry much more than should be able to fit), by having Big Mac come out before Applejack turned back into regular form.
After everypony arrived and put away their costumes, Fluttershy took them to the area of the workshop she had set up to receive the group. It was only a small thing, just a table with the prepared food and a bunch of cushions for them to sit, but it was cozy and none of them were the type who would mind that it was simple.
"So, first order of business." Twilight took the lead in the meeting with naturality "We should all introduce ourselves, just to make sure we're on the same page."
She looked around as the others nodded, then she went back to talking "I'll start. My name is Twilight Sparkle and I'm the First Court Mage of Equestria. I am also Dragon Mage."
"My name's Rainbow Dash!" Said pegasus exclaimed "I'm a freelance weather worker and also Sonic Rainbow."
"My name is Fluttershy... I'm the caretaker of the central Ponyville Animal Shelter and a freelance veterinary. I am also Gaia Knight."
"Mah name is Applejack. Ah'm the chief of the Apple Corporation, and the current Ponyville Crusader."
"Ah'm Big McIntosh. Worker manager of the Sweet Apple Acres and the previous Ponyville Crusader."
"I'm Rarity. I am a fashion designer and seamstress of the Carousel Boutique. I am also Gemstone."
"I'm Pinkie Pie! Baker of the Sugarcube Corner, Party Planner and Mare do Well!"
There was a moment of silence before Twilight brought up the next part of the agenda "Most of us have come to this meeting because we are going to be part of a new team of heroes, so we need to work out the specifics of how this will work and inform the new heroes about the things the veterans think will be useful to known about the hero world, which is why Big Mac is here."
The mentioned pony nodded.
"I think the best place to start would be with Celestia's Foresight magic." Twilight sighed "Essentially, it allows her to have a vague sense of which things she must do in order to lead events to the best conclusion. Because of that, Celestia was watching during my test to enter Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, when my power awakened and it and my magic together ended up causing havoc. She prevented anything bad from happening and hid the fact that I had received powers, before making me her apprentice and training me to become a heroine.
"I came to this city because of Celestia's Foresight magic saying that I would be needed here in the long term, which I guess means that Ponyville is going to be needing the help of a team of superheroes in the long term, though I'm sure Celestia will send us to other places to deal with crises when they happen, because teleportation formations are very convenient."
"That might be a bit of a problem." Applejack put in "The power of the Ponyville Crusader is tied ta the grounds of Ponyville and nearby places. Ah would still have some power outside, but not nearly as much..."
Twilight nodded "Princess Luna told me about that. There is a great research project that's been active for centuries to try and find a way around that, but anyway, even a reduced Ponyville Crusader is still a great help. There were many occasions in the past where a great threat was averted because the Ponyville Crusader of the time left Ponyville to help."
Applejack smiled at that "Ah'll do what Ah can, then."
"After that..." Twilight continued "I think we should talk about the common threats we'll have to deal with, and considering that we'll be based on Ponyville, we should probably start with the local problems." She looked to Big Mac and Pinkie Pie with expectation.
The stallion was the one to talk first.
"Ah guess the first thing ta talk about should be Flame Empress." He closed his eyes in thought "She has a powerful Gift, the ability ta create and manipulate flames up ta a level where she can create building sized flames. No idea what she actually wants. Sometimes she steals stuff, sometimes she destroys things randomly, more than once she attacked me while Ah was doing something. And she is too silent for me ta get an impression from her words."
"Yeah, and it's really annoying every time she attacks because all that hot air messes up with the weather patterns something fierce." Rainbow Dash put in her own two bits, sounding annoyed.
Pinkie was the next "There is always the mech robbers. You know, those ponies who use technological armors to rob banks, museums and whatever else. No matter how many you send to jail, more appear later." She sighed.
"Yeah, they are a problem everywhere." Twilight agreed "There are at least three different sources of those mech armors, one of them being a Gift bearer who makes them himself, while the others use scavenged technology from old inventors that they've managed to reproduce to a certain degree. They sell those things on the black market and we are always trying to catch the merchants, but they are good at staying in the shadows."
"Speaking of shadows..." Pinkie put on a serious expression "There is also 'The Boss'. He or she is pretty much the ruler of the criminal underworld in Ponyville, and has been for the last eight years without me being able to find who they are. Their method consists of sending money to criminals via some sort of teleportation, which I guess is their Gift, along with instructions on how to use it. And without ever personally meeting with any criminals, they still manage to have a hoof on most of the crimes that happen in this city." She scowled "I don't like it."
"If the boss writes those instructions by hoof, maybe I could find a few traces of them by looking at the papers." Fluttershy piped up "I know you've probably already tried something like that, but I can think of a few detection methods that can only be used with super technology."
"That would be nice. I'll see if I can bring back one of the ones I found." Pinkie answered.
"And the last constant threat we have ta worry about in Ponyville is Carrion. A griffin with a Gift of teleportation, who loves ta hunt and kill ponies for sport." Big Mac said, with obvious anger "He is a coward that runs away whenever somepony stronger appears."
Rarity was the one to scowl that time "Him. He almost killed my mother once, and ever since then she has waled with a limp." Her expression softened when she looked at Pinkie "Thank you for saving her."
"It's what I do." Pinkie nodded and smiled.
Twilight thought that something was odd "What about the Crystal Creation? Wasn't it the monster Discord had set to hound this city?"
"It's dead." Big Mac and Pinkie Pie spoke at the same time "We fought it on the underground tunnels and managed to destroy it, though it wasn't without sacrifices." Pinkie finished and looked at Big Mac with slight sadness.
"Discord will eventually replace it with some other monster. But for now, Ponyville is safe from that." He commented.
"So, I guess it's time to talk about some of the big threats in the whole of Equestria." Twilight said.
"Obviously, there's Discord. As you well know, he rarely acts directly, preferring to create what he calls 'Chaotic Beasts' and send them to cities to cause havoc in all kinds of different ways. Each one has their own appearance, abilities and strategies, but what they all have in common is that they are created and live to cause chaos."
"Ya said he 'rarely' acts directly." Applejack took the word "How much is 'rarely'?"
"Around once per century." Twilight spoke without hesitation, then went back to her explanation.
"There's the Wandering Mage. She is not a direct threat most of the time, but she is a mercenary that has committed a lot of crimes for the sake of money. She uses a powerful artifact called Alicorn Amulet that gives her immense magical power, and usually it would also make the wielder lose control, but she has some kind of Gift that allows her to prevent that from happening."
Pinkie raised her hoof "Are you sure it's a Gift instead of some other cause?"
"Relatively sure." Was Twilight's answer.
"After that, there's Grogar the Fourth. Descendant of the original Grogar. He doesn't have any Gifts that we know about, but he is a powerful and skilled warlock with control over an entire alternate dimension. His deal is getting more power, sometimes by abducting other beings, sometimes by stealing magical resources and sometimes doing other things."
"I think my father told me a story about that. Something about the first Grogar being defeated by... Majesty?" Rarity said.
"Yeah. Majesty the Unicorn. She lived before Queen Majesty utterly ruined the name." Twilight said with a sigh "She was one of the strongest heroines in history, and definitely the strongest of her generation. She even once managed to tie against Tirek in a one on one fight."
There was a moment of silence.
"How likely it is that we'll end up having to fight against Tirek?" Rainbow Dash asked, already imagining that she wouldn't like the answer.
"Distressingly likely." Twilight said "He has been rather quiet lately, but his patterns always shift between quiet periods and periods of intense activity." She waited a moment "Thankfully, we'll probably be a lot more well-prepared and experienced when it comes time to actually go against him."
They thought about that for a bit before Twilight got things back on track.
"Those are the most important to know about. There are a few other threats but we can talk about them later." She looked around "I think we should decide about who gets to be team leader."
The other six looked at her, confused "Wasn't it you?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"What? No, we never actually decided that, and I mean... Pinkie is more experienced than me, she could be a good leader."
Said pony rolled her eyes good-naturedly "I''m experienced, but you're just made for leading. Didn't you see how you've been taking charge of things ever since we met?" She looked around "Who else thinks that Twilight should be the leader?"
She raised her hoof, followed immediately by every other pony in the room save Twilight herself.
The unicorn blushed at that.
"I guess it's decided." Pinkie nodded "What's the next thing on the agenda, leader?"
Twilight hesitated for a moment, then smiled.
"Well..."
And so their meeting continued.
-0-
The first meeting of the League of Harmony is underway and things are peaceful for now. However, this definitely won't last forever. A new threat is approaching, but is it a new threat or an old one? Find out in the next chapter of League of Harmony! Point of View part 1.
I'll see you there!
Author's Note
Sorry that this took so long, but I was really focused on my other story, and I wanted this chapter to be good.
I can't hold all this foreshadowing!
Also, again I've broken my "longest chapter" record.
