Equestria Assaulted

The sun, at Celestia's command, rose again, marking another dawn. The brilliant solar rays shone through a tower window, crossing the face of a blue stallion, rousing him from slumber. He sat up, his unkempt scarlet mane obscuring his vision. The stallion crawled out of bed, his hooves striking the stone of the tower floor loudly as he walked to, then down, the staircase to a room filled with a shallow pool of aqua-tinted water. He hopped into the frigid pool casually, then jumped out of it, wide awake, his fur dripping onto the stone floor. He walked down the spiraling staircase to another room, then sat on a wooden stool, facing a mirror. He gave a moment of fleeting attention to his mane, magically arranging it to stay backwards, slick, out of his violet eyes. Another second was spent adjusting his mane's peculiar black streak, moving individual strands to align it perfectly. He turned to the back wall of the room, levitating one of several dark purple capes onto his back.

He turned to the mirror, smiling at himself, then trotted down the stairs once again. He walked past his comfortable sitting room, exited his tower suite through an ornate wooden door, taking a moment to breathe before continuing into a castle hallway. After countless flights of stairs and expansive hallways, the unicorn passed the contingent of Royal Guards, heading into Canterlot proper. He enjoyed a breakfast of fruity Danish, an amazing pastry originating from Denmarek, before returning to the Castle. The main avenues leading from Canterlot's civil areas to the Royal Castle were congested, and security screenings were intense as of late. The fiasco at the wedding of Celestia's niece.... Nevertheless, the unicorn was patient, surveying the crowd as he waited, nevertheless irritated at having to enter the Castle through public thoroughfares.

When, at last, he stood before a guardsman, he simply looked at him and the guard lowered the forcefield blocking the entrance.

“Pleasure to see you, Master Sparkchaser, sir.” The guard nodded his head respectfully. Sparkchaser contemplated rolling his eyes, but thought better of it, prefering to turn away entirely, ignoring the guard.

He walked on, following a crowd of hundreds into the Castle, smiling as he walked through the familiar door. Only a few hoofsteps past the threshold, though, and four guards approached him, parting the mass of ponies, kneeling in front of him. He stepped between them, walking on, as they parted the crowd, escorting him into a small glass room at the back of the atrium. The chamber door sealed, and the floor rose magically, carrying the five ponies to the apex of the castle, above the atrium's vaulted ceiling, past floors of scholars, guards, and visitors, to another massive room. The guards returned to the atrium in the elevator as Sparkchaser walked on alone.

The room was dark, the walls and ceiling painted black, the tiniest of pinpricks in the ceiling above provided something akin to starlight. A bright white orb shined above, a magical imitation of the moon. Sparkchaser stood directly under this orb and knelt, his head almost touching the floor.

“Stand up, my student. You need not observe tradition so closely.” Princess Luna spoke softly, her natural voice easily carrying to Sparkchaser. Very different from her outside demeanor, the Princess served by Sparkchaser was neither abraisive nor direct.

“Neither do the Royal Guard, but somepony insists on demanding it of them.” Sparkchaser smiled and raised his head, his teacher and friend standing before him gracefully.

“The Royal Guard is not composed entirely of brilliant, talented unicorns.” Luna laughed and brightened the room slightly, taking in the sight of her polished, if nervous, protege.

“I am hardly the most brilliant of the Equestrian unicorn population, teacher. Not even a close second, if a second at all, for your sister's own student, Lady Sparkle, eclipses me in every way.”

Luna sighed at her student, ignoring the comment about Celestia's pupil. “Sparkchaser, I am allowed to exaggerate in an attempt to boost my student's ego and calm his nerves, especially today.”

“Teacher, I have no reason to be nervous today. True, I may be the youngest unicorn to ever be considered a graduate of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but that is only because Lady Sparkle declined graduation, due to her preference for her adopted residence and her studies. I have already passed every examination needed to graduate, many of them with the highest recorded scores in Equestrian history. I am the third male graduate in over two centuries. And I owe it all to you, teacher,” Sparkchaser bowed again. Luna blushed softly. “Do you have any final advice for me? A last word during our last hour as student and teacher?” A single tear fell down Sparkchaser's cheek as he looked at his proud mentor.

“Sparkchaser, you need no advice. But I will repeat only what I have told you every day. Magic is a gift, not a tool. Treat it as a friend. It is a part of you, but it is so much more. Your magic is what makes Sparkchaser who he is. You know this better than any student in millenia. Celestia has taught many gifted students, but I am lucky that my very first protege possesses true potential, beyond that of his contemporaries and many of his teachers. No, my student, I will not spend this past hour on lessons and lectures. I will spend it as friends. Sit with me, please.”

Sparkchaser sat, his eyes bright. She poured him warm tea, unusual for this summer day, but it was pleasantly cool in Luna's wing of the Castle. He sipped it, savoring the bitter taste, smiling at her.

“Luna, why me? What is so special about me?” Luna had to refrain from rolling her eyes. True, the younger of the Alicorn Sisters could be naïve at times, but she still possessed the wisdom of a mare of her age. Sparkchaser asked this question often, and it perplexed her every time.

“For once, I will not attempt to compliment you, or even answer you. Instead, I will ask you a question.” Luna smiled inwardly. Perhaps, after the past months had been spent solely on refining Sparkchaser's self esteem, the lack of which could truly impede magic, Luna had found a true solution. Celestia and the junior teachers seemed to believe that Sparkchaser would grow into his precocious talent, but Luna knew the issue was deeper. Sparkchaser was capable of amazing things, like Twilight Sparkle, Celestia's protégé. Twilight, along with her friends, were tied with the Elements of Harmony. The six of them were exceptional, and that exceptional inner strength, unity and dedication had saved Equestria... It had saved Equestria from Luna's own fury. Twilight and her friends had made Luna whole again, and Luna wondered in Sparkchaser's lack of self-knowledge and self-assurance was because he saw that as an image to live up to.

“Teacher?” Sparkchaser's eyebrow twitched. Luna giggled. The eyebrow-twitch was a sign he was confused. It was his only tell that she knew of, and he had worked for months to conceal it, to control it. Luna had attempted to be open-minded, but she had outright laughed at him for it once.

“Sparkchaser, why not you? What is less than special about you?” Luna watched as his mouth opened, as if he knew what she was going to say and had his response planned, and then it closed again. Perhaps she truly had caught him off guard.

“Are you seriously using 'Why not?' as a response to 'Why?'” Sparkchaser looked incredulous.

This wasn't the lesson Luna had intended, and yet it may be a much more appropriate lesson. Sparkchaser was, in all honesty, barely a stallion. Socially, he was without a history. He was shy, as most young stallions were, but by adulthood, social experience diluted that nature. Sparkchaser had none. Luna seized the opportunity to sneak in a final, important lesson.

“I find, my student, that asking 'why not?' rarely closes the doors of opportunity. The heavy winds of inquisitive doubt will slam such doors shut, but a breeze of curious amusement can be followed through multiple doors, all leading to an ultimate end.” Luna enjoyed riddles and metaphors as much as the next mare, but Sparkchaser's ravenous mind devoured them. Though using them as teaching tools had failed at first, Luna quickly found that the lesson within the meaning needed to be indirect. While trying to dissect the meaning of the metaphor, Sparkchaser often found himself contemplating personal thoughts, learning a lesson unrelated to the task. He thought it an accident, none the wiser of Luna's trickery. Celestia was lucky. Twilight had been forced to learn of friendship's worth, and had been intrigued enough to study further without provocation. For now, that seemed enough. Contrariwise, Sparkchaser seemed to flinch at the very idea of even speaking to another pony without purposeful reason. Luna had further, darker worries concerning Sparkchaser's friendless nature, but she kept those well to herself.

Sparkchaser stuttered, Luna's labyrinthine statement visibly perplexing him. His eyes turned down gently, her sign that the “unintended” lesson had hit home. Intriguingly, the hidden lesson was also the answer, however indirectly, to Sparkchaser's question.

“Luna, I'm...” Sparkchaser sipped his tea, his hooves shakier than ever before, the anticipation ruining his collected appearance. He stammered and then said something very quickly. It sounded like 'Naitlspalrummm...'. Sparkchaser trailed off as he realized his lack of clarity. A knock sounded at the door, asking for the two of them. Luna rose.

“It is time, my student.” She left him, walking towards the door, and he followed, cold and controlled again, tradition dictating how far behind his teacher he walked, how fast they journeyed from Luna's tower to the Garden Courtyard, and how many guards surrounded them as they walked.

They passed private rooms, many of which Sparkchaser knew well. He had studied in the Castle for a long time, learning magic, learning mindfulness, but leaving his soul, heart, and body empty, neglected in the pursuit of knowledge. When she met him, the impact of an illness on his power lead him to take better care of himself. This pleased Luna. Sparkchaser, as a foal, had been naturally strong, tall, and well built. Years of study and sleepless nights had taken his physical integrity. He had learned, brutally, that magic required a dedication of oneself to something beyond knowledge. It required a dedication to one's health, as he had learned then. It also required a third dedication, of which the unicorn was greatly lacking, perhaps purposefully.

Only a short distance, vertically, from the bustling unicorns and pegasi setting the stage for the coming ceremony, Luna quickly stole a glance at a room she remembered, but thankfully Sparkchaser did not. Luna had only truly been in the Castle for around two years. The room she saw had been where he met her. His fear and doubt, in the dark cloud of sickness, was horrifying. Luna had become his teacher only after he proved to her he would never fall that far again. She could only imagine the horror of watching him decline.

With every step of their descent, the years of their friendship and tutelage seemed to elongate. Hours felt like days, and days like months. To Luna, her banishment was a brief rebellious stint compared to the past years. Sparkchaser, however, was completely overwhelmed by the feeling of decades. She saw a tear in his eye. She had only seen him cry once before. Her throat locked in memory. Those tears had fallen much like these had, at the whim of a ticking clock. Sparkchaser had told her that life was too short, and she had laughed then, but... Sparkchaser had every reason to say that. He was exhausted at the time, looking out over Equestria, the lights of Canterlot almost obscuring the tiny specks of other towns on the horizon.

“Luna...” he had said, weakly. “For every single light I see, there must be ten, twenty, two hundred ponies. Each of them has a story, just like me, and each of them is completely and totally different from any other. And...” His tears had caused him to hiccup, nearly driving Luna to an emotional outburst of her own. “And even if I try, even if I had tried since foalhood, there is no way I could every know them all. There is no way I could give every single one of them the time and the effort they deserve.” After a moment of staring at the expanse of Equestia, he fell asleep standing up, his hooves leaving imprints in the balcony railings.

Luna looked at the single tear falling from his student's eye, remembering the hundreds that had followed the same path, and she smiled. Her student, deep inside, knew the same thing that every pegasus, unicorn, earth pony knew, that everypony, whether a subject of Celestia and herself or a member of a distant land, knew.

The decades-long years that preceded this moment seemed to snap back as the door to the courtyard opened. Instead of months, it felt like minutes had passed. Sparkchaser's years with her was now a brief memory as they proceeded beyond the arched door. Sparkchaser stepped in front of her, in front of the guards, walking to a raised stage alone, where Celestia stood, surrounded by unicorns famed for their mastery of spells, recruited to teach the next decades of students. Sparkchaser swallowed his fears and stepped onto the stage, his head raised high, his mostly-red mane slick with sweat. A lock of hair from the black streak sprung loose, hanging between his eyes. This was either a pathetically nervous accident, or an unintentional statement of confidence, and only Sparkchaser knew which.

He saw Twilight Sparkle and her friends in the audience, their presence likely requested by Celestia. Cadenza, Celestia's niece, sat next to her husband, Shining Armor, smiling. Sparkchaser's fragile confidence nearly melted as he felt the gazes of Equestria's most elite ponies. Ceremoniously, he used magic to light a pair of torches at the back of the courtyard, one with red flame, the other with blue, symbolizing the colors of his mane, coat, and cutie mark. At this signal, Luna strolled regally to the stage, fluttering up to stand next to him, and he smiled slightly at her. She levitated a scroll to him, a legal document proving his graduation. Next, she levitated a medallion, with a red and blue cord, lowering it on to his head. It was only four inches from his horn when an echo sounded from behind them. The entire gathering, even the unflappable mares at Celestia's hooves, turned to look at the back wall of the stage.

The white wall, adorned with blue and red drapery, was turning a sickening green. Swift as a bolt of lightning, a black thing shot from the wall, tearing through it like wet paper. Celestia's wings were quicker still, she was airborne, a magical aura surrounding the crowd. The projectile stopped extraordinarily quickly. Now sitting centerstage, the object unfolded. Black, vaguely pony-shaped, with strange holes in its limbs, sharp, pointed teeth, sickly eyes, and awkward, insectoid wings... A changeling glared menacingly as scores of its brethren poured from the back wall, swarming the ceremony's guests.