Act I – Arrival and Friendship
“Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria…” A purple unicorn was lying in on a hill reading. She was absorbed in her book like she always was, so absorbed, in fact, that she didn’t notice the living rainbow flying over her. Nor did she see when the rainbow quickly turned and stroke down near a tree only a few meters away from her, turning into an azure pony on the way.
“Hi Twilight what’s you reading?” The purple unicorn looked up, with a mixture of surprise and irritation at the smiling alicorn, who was hanging upside down above her head.
“Rainbow you startled me.”
“Ah relax Twilight I was just kidding around” Rainbow said as she turned over and landed in front of the purple unicorn.
“But that exactly is it Rainbow, you’re always just kidding around, you’re always just goofing off or practicing some insane stunt, if you had used just half the amount of time you spent making tricks for studying, you would have been graduated long ago instead of being a dropout. Don’t you know how embarrassing that is to your mother, the empress of all of ponydom?”
“Okay, first of all Twi, nopony can live up to mothers expectations”
“I can” Twilight said, “Empress Celestia has always been proud of me. I’m her…”
“…faithful student. Yeah I know Twi, which leads us to my second point: You never take any time off your studying, do you even know any other pony that you aren’t related to?”
“And mom doesn’t count” Rainbow was quick to add.
“Of course I know lots of ponies… there is Moondancer… eh…. and then there is that mint green unicorn from the Heartstring family”
“Lyra?”
“Who?”
“See, you don’t know her name, I bet you don’t even know what Moondancer looks like either.”
Crossing her legs triumphantly she sent Twilight her most winning smile.
“So why don’t you put those books down and hang out with me for a few hours, it won’t be the end of the world.” Rainbow looked Twilight in the eyes and slowly forcing her book down with her hoof.
“But that’s it Rainbow, it just might be that we stand on the precipice of disaster.”
“The preci-say what-now?”
“See you don’t even know what that means” Twilight massaged her temples with her hoof.
“Look I don’t really have time for this right now; I’m in the middle of important research, so just tell me what you wanted to say so I can get out of here.”
“Okay listen” the princess started excitedly, “there is this wicked cool show tonight about these totally awesome pegasi performs called the Wonderbolts and…”
“No”
“But you haven’t even…”
“No”
“But mom says I can only go if you go too.”
“Then I guess you’re not going.”
Rainbow Dash pouted her face to prepare the cliché line. "Buuuut Twiiiiiillliiiiiight"
“You should have thought about that before you burned down the gymnasium.” This brought a steer to the young alicorn and she leapt in the air in front of Twilight.
“Hay what happened at Cloudsdale totally wasn’t my fault and that was ten years ago.”
“And yet you still got expelled.” Twilight said in a calm condescending voice.
“Well that was just because that stupid headmaster was out to get me; he had been nagging me and killing my buzz ever since I entered.” That however was not the argument winning answer she had been hoping for, as it made Twilights checks turn a deeper shade of purple.
“Rainbow Dash, you and Cadence are the only alicorns that have been born within a thousand years. That you attended his school should have been the highest of honours. But you acted so irresponsible that there was no other choice left in the end. Celestia herself had to be called in to get the damage under control.” Twilight took a deep sign and continued in a lower voice.
“Look, go to your room and sulk, perform another one of your stupid rainbooms, or cause another international incident with your childish pranks. Whatever you do, I don’t care, just leave me alone.”
***
-An hour later-
Twilight had just sent a report to Empress Celestia explaining her concern for the imminent return of Nightmare Moon. She had time to lecture her dragon familiar, when a reply came back.
“See Spike, I told you Empress Celestia would take immediate action”
She opened the letter with her magic and skimmed the letter hastily, then read it another time, and then another…
“Silly books…. make some friends, Spike did Rainbow write this?”
“It has Celestias seal” Spike said. “you know that can’t be forged”.
“I can’t believe it, I can’t bucking believe it.”, she raged while bucking a bookcase behind her, almost causing it to fall over.
“You can’t believe what Twi?” a certain sly-smiling, azure coated, and rainbow maned alicorn said while resting casually over a bookcase nearby.
“Rainbow, how long have you been here?”
“Awhile, so…” she went over to Twilight beaming like the sun, “mom brushed you off too, so I guess now you have time to go to the Wonderbolt show with me.”
“I can’t, I have to go to Ponyville.”
Princess Rainbow didn’t even try to contain her laugh.
“That sappy village with those goofy Earthponies down in the valley? That’s like the lamest town ever; the next thing you know she would want to put you in charge of their Summer Sun Celebration.”
“Well, actually.” Spike said
“Oh my gosh, she is? This is too rich. The mighty Twilight Sparkle, favourite pupil of Celestia, and hair of the noble house of Twilight forced to work as an organiser for a lowly peasant celebration. You really must have pissed of mom, oh former favourite student of Celestia. Now it all makes much more sense”
“What?” Twilight said prissily.
“Why she was so interested in Moondancer earlier, I bet she is already looking for somepony to replace you.
“Eh Rainbow” Spike the purple dragon said. “I really don’t want to interrupt your taunting of Twilight, but perhaps you should read this” He handed her the smoothed letter that Twilight had crumbled earlier in her tantrum.
Taking it in her light blue levitation field Rainbow read:
“Bla bla bla, go to Ponyville, blab la bla, Summer Sun Celebration… my faithful student Twilight Sparkle and daughter Rainbow Dash…” Rainbow recrumbled the letter with her blue magic and threw it at the garbage can. It was once again quickly retrieved and resmoothed out by Spike.
“You got to be bucking kidding me, she has practically bared me from exiting Canterlot and the only time I’m allowed to go it has to be the lamest town ever.”
Rainbow stormed out of the room.
“Don’t forget to be packed and ready within an hour” Twilight called after her, amused and relieved that she at least won’t have to go through this torture alone.
***
- Yet another hour later -
Celestia’s sun now stood in south-south west, proving that it was now just past noon.
The two noble ponies, the azure blue alicorn and the purple unicorn stood in front of a large sky blue carriage with gold covered edges and a dazing Rainbow coloured lightning bolt that matched her cutiemark on the front.
In front of the large carriage, that would take she and Twilight to Ponyville, were four white pegasi from the royal guard, ready and alert to take off when their princess demanded it.
She hated that thing, Celestia always gave her the worst gifts. She wanted rocket powered roller-skates and a chance to go to Los Pegasus for… well that didn’t matter, and instead she got her own decorated royal carriage that could go about 10 kilometers per hour at max speed. Why the buck did she needs that? She preferred to fly for herself instead of being drawn around like a price pig.
It’s to make good impressions she had said like when you go to the gala, she had said. The most ominous thing about that was that it implied that she would have to attend the Grand Galloping Gala again, even after what happened last year.
Rainbow looked around to the ponies that had come to wave them off. To the right she saw Twilights parents, Viscountess and Mistress of the Robes Twilight Velvet and her husband Nightlight; to their left were her sister Cadence and Twilights brother Shining Armor, captain of the royal guard. The House of Twilight really was well connected with the royal family. Still why did he have to stay that close to her sister, he was practically rubbing her flank. Yet in all of that, there were one pony she didn’t see.
“She didn’t even bother to wave me goodbye!”
“She was probably just too busy you will see her tomorrow, at the summer sun celebration.”
“No the peasants will see her tomorrow; you know how she is at these events. She spends all that time around you and doesn’t even have time for…” Rainbow inhaled deeply, “You know, just forget it, let’s just get out of here and give these commoners a show for their money.”
Without saying another word, the two ponies and the little dragon stepped up on the carriage and took off over the cliff towards the sleepy town of Ponyville far below them.
***
Ponyville looked every bit as sleepy and uninteresting as Rainbow imagined, with its thatched roofs and dirt roads, it was an archetypical small time village, with archetypical small time villages minds. Not that Rainbow had actually met a commoner before, but she could imagine them quite well due the stories she had heard.
The only noticeable thing about the town was the unnatural tall hill that lay on the town’s south-western fridge near the immense forest. On top the hill was an edifice of white marble, a temple dedicated to her mother, the god Empress of Equestria. On top of the shrine wafted Equestria’s flag: The radiant yellow that graced her mother’s flank on top of a solid red background.
While the grand cathedral in Canterlot did look kind of awesome, Rainbow had to admit, this temple with its oversized flag, taking up almost all the hill it stood on, which left very little place to actually get to the temple unless you could fly, looked completely ridiculous. The road down looked positively like a death-trap, she just hoped there would never be any out of control baby carriages going down their or they might easily fall of the edge unless somepony was fast enough to get to them before it is too late.
***
The carriage carrying the hair to the most noble house of Twilight personal protégée of Empress Celestia herself and a lady-in-waiting to the royal court along her dragon familiar and her princess, landed near the town square in a relatively quiet side street.
“So what’s our first stop Spike” Twilight said.
“Well Sweet Apple Acres stands for the food to the reception, so I guess that’s a good place to start, but didn’t Celestia say you had to make friends?”
“Spike, the fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends, and certainly not to commoners.”
“Come on Twilight, I don’t want you to get on Celestia’s bad side for not even trying, remember what happened to that one maid that spilled her tea a couple of months ago?”
“ One it hit the Empress right in her face and two she was nothing but a lowborn commoner, but fine I’ll humour you.”
“Hello” she said to the first pony she saw, a pink earth pony smelling like frosting and cotton candy, that had been walking towards them as they landed and now looked at them with big blue eyes.
She had barely said the words before the pony in question gave a laud gasp and ran away as fast as she could. Turning around she saw Rainbow Dash imitating the pose she had seen Celestia doing a thousand times, only with a cocky mischievous grin on her face which made the whole thing look like a parody, which knowing Rainbow it properly was.
Giving a loud sign she started trotting away towards the farm Spike mentioned. This was going to be a long day.
***
Sweet Apple Acres, (which if you wanted to be frank was an apple plantation and not a farm), was every bit as rural and country as she had imagined: the faint smell of manure, dust everywhere, she even saw pigs running about; what was the purpose of these disgusting animals anyway?
Just as she thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse she saw what she feared to be the proprietor, running towards a tree yelling “Yeehaa” Then she proceeded to bucking the tree with her hind legs which got its apples to fall off into a conveniently placed barrel near the trunk.
That mare was the spitting image of the uneducated underclass. She had an ugly orange coat with stupid white freckles, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she also wore a stetson hat to complete the look.
“Oh common Spike, Rainbow, let’s get this over with.”
“How do you do stranger” she said in the most contempt free voice she could muster “My name is Twilight Sparkle h…”
“Howdy, miss Twilight, a pleasure making your acquaintances, ma names Applejack; we here at Sweet Apple Acres sure love making new friends” As the country hillbilly said this she shock her hoof so hard that Twilights hole body was shaking.
“Friends” Twilight stammered. This was most unbecoming to do to a highborn lady of her standard. Anyway, despite being shocked and appalled like she was due this undignified greeting, she couldn’t help to overhear the weakly contained giggling from the background.
“So who’s your friend” indicating Rainbow behind her, “and what can I do for you?” This gave the princess a new case of the giggles. After taking a moment of clearing her trout she said:
“Twilight if you may” Signing heavily and looking up at the sky, having played this game too many times already in the past Twilight said:
“This is the illustrious princess of the sky, the awe-inspiring, wondrous and famous Rainbow… Crash” While she said this, Rainbow proudly posed with her wings stretched up, and her head tilted so everypony could see her beautiful long horn, but when Twilight said the last part, Rainbow gave a surprised “Hey!”
“I mean ‘Dash’” Twilight finished.
“Holly Molly a real life princess” Applejack said, immediately dropping to her knees and started shaking “Ah sorry, Ah didn’t notice ye before ye Highness, please don’t take me away like my ma and my pa.”
Rainbow loved to be admired but what she felt from Applejack wasn’t admiration, it wasn’t even respect, it was fear pure and simple, and it was really, really awkward.
“I’m sorry Applejack, I didn’t mean to frighten you, please get up, this kneeling is making me uncomfortable. What happened to your parents?”
Regaining her composure Applejack got up
“I’m sorry if Ah made ye fell uncomfortable your highness, I just got a little shocked seeing an alicorn today, ye see today is the ten year anniversary of my parents disappearance, we have sort of made it a family tradition to come here once every year since in remembrance and to celebrate these ponies we have left.” Applejack sighed “And what happened to mah folks was actually real simple, ma and pa got political and got caught.”
This explanation seemed like enough for Twilight, who gave a knowing “Ah” but just left Rainbow more confused.
“What?” Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight. Twilight whispered “I’ll tell you later. Shaking her head she went back to Applejack.
“Perhaps we should just start over; in fact I would be honoured if you would give me the same Sweet Apple welcome you gave my buddy Twilight here.” As she said that she laid a playful hoof over Twilights neck which just resulted in another snare from the purple unicorn.
“Well them howdy to you too princess. Just wait right here and you are going to get the best of what Sweet Apple has to offer”.
“And your friend too of course” winking at Twilight.
“Well actually we are kind of in a hurry and…”
“We’ll love too” Rainbow finished for her, with Twilight shooting daggers from her eyes.
“We are actually the official royal overseers for the Summer Sun Celebration so it is Twilights job to test out everything you are gonna disc out”.
What happened next was a blur. The orange farmer hammered a triangle while yelling “Soup's on, everypony”, then a literal horde of ponies from all over came running up to them. The next hour went by with Applejack introducing them to every single member of her seemingly endless family, who all dished up with an apple related course. In the end there was more apple inspired dishes then even the royal banquet hall had to offer.
***
“Oh I ate too much pie” Twilight said, as she was dragging herself down the dirt rood back to Ponyville.
“Oh come on, I told them you would love it” Rainbow teased.
“And you could just have refused and crushed that little filly’s heart”
Ignoring the obnoxious alicorn, Twilight said to Spike:
“So what’s next on the list?”
“Well with food taken care of the next item is weather. There’s supposed to be a pegasus pony called Derpy Hooves clearing the skies”
“Well she isn’t doing a very good job, is she?” Rainbow Dash said, looking on the multitude of clouds up in the sky.
“I bet I could do the job in ten seconds flat”
With that Rainbow was off, before Twilight could even blink Rainbow had buckled, zapped and blown the clouds to smithereens by magically summoned wins. As a grand finally Rainbow wrote her name in the sky with a sonic rainboom, by teleporting at the right moments. After writing the last letter, Rainbow teleported herself down to the ground, and landed right into it.
Like a mole, or a giant digging machine she pummeled through the ground with only her horn sticking up for dozens of meters, before finally coming to a halt.
“Oh man I’m going to puke earth for a week” Rainbow said as she coughed up a small rock, and freed herself from the soil.
“That’s what you get from not calculating your teleportation accurately. Twilight said dryly seemingly not impressed.
“You know if you had been a unicorn you would have been dead by now.”
“If I had been a unicorn I would have killed myself by now” Rainbow replied thinking how she couldn’t survive five minutes without her wings, and not really getting the second meaning of her words. Ignoring the alicorn, Twilight looked at the sky, where Rainbow’s rainbow letters still shined brightly.
“Nice writing skills you got, by the way”
Up in the sky over Ponyville was a capital P with a rounded tale, followed by “R O wuz l\ere” the “r” looking more like a squiggly line then an actual letter.
“Ah, you try to do better” Rainbow said, while hitting the side of her head with a hoof and making an enormous amount of dirt fall out her ear.
With all Twilights considerable willpower she managed to avoid a snide reply involving the words “dirt” and “brain”. However even her will was only that strong, but right before she was about to cave in, she was hit with great velocity by a grey pegasus with a blonde mane, sending them both tumbling down into a nearby puddle.
“Uh, look what you have done your filthy pauper” Twilight snared at the pegasus as she was trying to regain her bearings.
“Derpy Hooves I presume” Rainbow said, looking at the strange grey pegasus with yellow eyes that seemed to be looking at both of them at the same time.
That’s when Rainbow and Twilight saw two guards, one flying one running towards them.
“In the name of Celestia, stop that mare!” the earthbound unicorn stallion yelled. The grey pegasus looked with fear at the approaching guards and tried to fly away but Twilight held her firmly in a purple force field.
“Thank you citizen” the guards said as they apprehended the mare and shackled her hoofs and wings.
“What did she do?” Rainbow asked as she looked at the pitiful mare; one bright eye still looking at the princess while the other looked at the guards.
“None of your business unicorn” one of the guards said.
“Hey I’m not a unicorn” Rainbow said in defiance, spreading her wings.
“A princess” the guards gasped looked at each other, then back at her. “Hehem” the guard said, “What I meant to say was, that it is none of your business princess”
“But if you must know” the other guard said, less certain about himself, “she defiled the statue of the empress, and desecrated her imagine. “
He pointed a hoof on the foreboding statue of Celestia that stood in the middle of the tow square 200 meters away, that Rainbow couldn’t, for the light of Celestia, see anything wrong with except it looking painfully out of place. Then he pointed at some posters that, now that Rainbow looked, seemed to hang almost everywhere they depicted her mother looking sternly down, with the words “Obey” printed in the bottom.
Just somepony had drawn a moustache and other doodles on most of the posters. It looked good, it was definitely an improvement. This made Rainbow laugh, which seemed to irritate the guards.
“This is not funny princess; this mare is a dangerous political criminal!”
“Ah come on this is obviously just a harmless prank. I’m sure Celestia won’t mind”. This made the guards look questionable on each other and Twilight facehoofed. Derpy just looked even more confused but didn’t say anything.
“Then you take it up with the empress” the first guard said “but unless she gets an imperial pardon se is going to be sent to the mines.” This sparked panic in Derpy’s eyes and she started screaming incoherently about her Muffin.
Looking at Derpy with confusion and pity as the guards dragged her away asked:
“Twilight, what’s the mines?”
Her lady-in-waiting was still primarily occupied with getting the mud out of her fur, so she hadn’t really paid attention to what the guards said. Now however she stopped for a moment looking Rainbow in the eyes.
“I don’t know, I’ve never heard the term before but we don’t really have time to find out, we have a schedule to keep.”
“You go ahead Twi, I just have to go find out where they are taking that mare.”
“Fine” Twilight said, rolling her eyes, ”Just be quick and don’t get into too much trouble, we will meet you in the town hall.” Ignoring the protocol that it was incredible rude to turn your bag to a member of royalty, having done so much worse over the years to the poor princess, she turned to her pet dragon and said.
“Common Spike, what’s the next point on the list?”
***
“Hey you two, yea I’m talking to you” Rainbow shouted to the two guards that was dragging Derpy away after she caught up to them.
Their first instinct was to ignore her, but when she flew right in front of them so they had to stop, they reluctantly addressed the upstart princess.
“What do you want your highness” the unicorn of the pair said with ill hidden contempt.
“I want you to know where you’re taking this mare and why?” Rainbow said, immediately noticing their bad attitudes. She knew the guards in Canterlot didn’t have the highest respect for her, which was understandable due to her escapades but these two was rude on a whole other level, like a poorly trained attack dog.
“We already told you that this mare was caught smearing on her divine majesty’s image” the unicorn started.
“And we are taking her into custody until we can ship her up to the Gloom Valley’s internment camp, where she will spend her days working in the coal mines.” The pegasus added, still harsh but a little more forthcoming with information than his unicorn partner.
Derpy on the other hand was completely none responsive to the conservation, she head hung as she stared into the ground.
“Coal mines? But she’s a pegasus, pegasi can’t be underground for long, it could kill her.”
“We know.” the unicorn said, chuckling wickedly.
Seeing the face of the young princess as she was about to explode, the pegasus nervously added: “You have to understand, your highness, that political dissenters are very dangerous, and as E.S.C.A.P.E.D. agents we have to take immediate action whenever we see it.”
Rainbow only half head the last part as she had now discovered why Derpy wasn’t more responsive as she had been earlier when she flew into Twilight. Her left eye was now swollen black and her nose was partly covered with blood that was only now starting to dry”
“By Harmony what have you done to her?” Rainbow said lifting Derpy’s head with her magic.
“She gave us a funny look, so we gave her something else to look at” the unicorn said apparently not getting the mess he was in; for this made Rainbow completely lose her bearing. She fired a powerful blast from her horn which sent him tumbling dozens of meters though the air, instantly knocking him out cool.
His pegasus partner, not wanting to cross blades with an angry princess, immediately fled from the area.
Rainbow watching him fly away with a slight smile. Turning back to Derpy to ask if she was alright she noticed that the grey mare was gone too. All that was left was her shackles, and a mysterious blueberry muffin that had not been there before.
***
Rainbow trotted in silence towards the town hall deep in thoughts, occasionally nipping to the muffin that was surprisingly good.
The grey mare had been unusually quick to free herself when nopony was looking, was she really as innocent as she had seemed, or was there more too it? Had she done the right thing?
No the evil glint in the unicorn jailors eyes could not be mistaken, and even if Derpy had been guilty of something, she knew in her heart of heats that the punishment they described was far worse than anything she could have done. But what did that say about her mother?
Celestia. The marble statue of her in the town square seemed oddly out of place. It was too big, too menacing for this idyllic town, just like the temple on that hill, which she for some reason couldn’t see from this spot, although it should have been visible.
She had a nagging desire to topple that statue. She knew mother would have a fit, but it didn’t belong here. Statues should be about beauty and art, this one was about fear, the same kind of fear she had seen in Applejacks eyes when she had first realised she was a princess. She had loosened up afterwards; even asking her question about the difference between a friend, a lady-in-waiting and a hoofmade. Differences that the farmer didn’t quite understood, and when she thought about it, neither did she. Twilight had been her lady-in-waiting since even before they had gotten their cutiemarks. They practically grew up together and new each other like sisters. Twilight definitely wasn’t a servant, but she wasn’t quite a friend either.
While being lost in thoughts staring at the imposing statue of her mother, she suddenly noticed that Twilight was being dragged access the town square by a white unicorn with a frizzy purple mane.
***
“Ladies, this is a spa emergency code red” she heard the white unicorn that abducted Twilight say as soon as she entered the door. Friends or not, she still wouldn’t allow anypony to ponyhandle her lady-in-waiting.
She slowly crept towards them like a tiger, but before she had a chance to surprise them she got a new coughing attack and ended up puking something up that looked like a big old brick.
“I really shouldn’t have teleported into the grown” Rainbow said to herself, then saw four pair of eyes staring intently at her. Rainbows checks grow red as she saw the mess she had made on the floor and smiled nervously.
“Oh, sorry, I’m just going to clean this up” she said taking the brick in her blue levitation field and carrying it out the door, however she tripped on the door knob sending the brick flying out the window, shattering its glass. She would have landed on her face if she hadn’t spread her wings in time, making a summersault in the air and landing in the middle of the room graceful like a wonderbolt. Well almost, the carnage had gotten ten times worse with glass shards now littering the floor. She hung her wings in embarrassment.
“Don’t worry, I can fix this” she said, lifting the shards with her horn trying to remember the spell to repair broken items. She must have done something wrong because instead of bending themselves back together in the window, the shards flew at her with the speed of sound, drilling themselves into the wall behind her and the thankfully closed door and sending the once that hit her spinning to the sides.
“Sorry.” she said, lowering her head. The four ponies looked at her with their mouth hanging upon so much that it almost looked like they would hit the floor.
“Maybe I can…”
Taking this opportunity to do damage control Twilight stepped in.
“No,” Twilight interrupted, “just no, Rainbow Dash, somepony else will clean this up.”
Thrown out of her initial shock seeing an alicorn enter her favourite spa, the white unicorn replied:
”Oh of course, Princess Rainbow, I read an article about you in The Canterlot Sun. You really do know how to make an entrance. Oh your mane is just to die for, I love the colours, but it is just so messy.” she brushed a hoof trough Rainbows mane and inspected her meticulously.
“Oh dear, you’re in desperate need of Aloe and Lotus magic touch.” Turning to the pink and blue pony twins she said:
“Ladies my new friend Princess Rainbow here needs the whole royal treatment: hooficure, wingmassage, horncare, and the usual.”
Turning back to the princess she gave her a hug, that could seem a little too tight like had she just found a precious gem and didn’t wanted to let go.
“Oh, we two are going to be so good friends”
“I’m Rarity by the way,” she said, pointing her left forehoof at herself then putting it around the princess neck, “ we are going to talk about colts, and fashion, and hair, and…”
“Help me.” Rainbow said to Twilight, who looked rather amused at the moment, despite still being muddy.
“Oh, and don’t think I have forgotten what I promised you darling,” Rarity said, grabbing Twilight with her other hoof, “and Rarity is nothing if not good on her word”.
***
It took more diplomatic skill than Rainbow new she had, and a multiple of white lies, especially about alicorns and hooficures (she could never let her dark secret about her ticklish hoofs come to light) but Rarity seemed to buy it, although Twilight looked more sceptical.
However the hot tub where all three mares now sat was mandatory. Not that Rainbow hated this particular spa activity, she actually had one back in her room at the castle, not that she would let anypony know about it of course. She had to share it with others and she didn’t have Quacky, her rubber duck, to play with, but it was still rather nice.
The three mares were now talking about Rainbows favourite topic herself:
“So after I decided I was too cool for magic kindergarten I wanted to chill down for a while, but mom, that’s Empress Celestia to you, sent me to Cloudsdale. The Cloudsdale accadamy for highborn pegasi was actually really cool, but the headmaster was a real prick, so after eight years I felt like I had to leave. Then I went to this prissy unicorn school with Twilight for a few years, but that just became too much eventually, and after that, I have just sort of winged it.”
While Rarity listened with fascination,Twilight just facehoofed. How could Rainbow be proud of having skipped magic kindergarten, and then being expelled, not once, but twice from the two most prestigious schools known to ponydom.
“Oh that is so fascinating Rainbow; oh, I can call you Rainbow, right? So tell me have you ever been at the Grand Galloping Gala?”
“Yeaah?” she said, not really liking where this was going.
“Oh I always wanted to attend the gala, it is so high class and everypony that is anypony will be there. Oh it must be so wonderful to have actually been there.”
“Yeah, it’s somewhat alright” Rainbow said, thinking back on the most boring day in her life.
“Oh yeah, you were old enough to attend last year when I was writing my assignment on Starswirl the thirds astronomical almanac to all things astronomical, the second edition, comparison to the first. I wish I could have been there with you.”
“I felt the same way” Rainbow Dash said, truth to be told, she would rather read one of Twilights boring history books than attend to another of those events.
“Rainbow, dear,” Rarity said, “have you ever met prince Blueblood?” she almost shrieked as she said his name.
The mentioning of the pompous duke of Canterlot, whose extremely weak claims of blood relation to Celestia had earned him the honorific title of “prince”, physically made her want to hurl for a whole other reason than the dirt she still had in her stomach.
“Yeah, I’ve met him”
“How’s he like, tell me all the details.” Rarity said eagerly. Rainbow thought long about this. How do you describe a giant douche that has somehow taken the form of a pony?
Mistaking her hesitation for something else, Rarity probed.
“You don’t have feelings for him, do you? I would hate for us to be love rivals.”
“F-Feelings for him?” Rainbow clearly remembered the meeting last year at the gala, his lewd comment, his obnoxious arrogance, and the hoof that had “accidentally” touched her flank when she wasn’t looking. However she remembered with great satisfaction how her two hind hoofs had “accidentally” touching his jaw sending him flying right into the giant cake. Based on his reaction afterwards she believed that she might have given him a permanent cakephobia.
Looking at her intently as smiled at the memory of Blueblood sputtering around with cake all over Rarity gasped.
“Oh you do have feelings for him, oh woe me, woe me,” she said putting a hoof to her forehead, “to be in a love triangle with my new best friend that is also a princess, oh how the fate is cruel.”
This was too much for the poor alicorn, she puked the rest of the earth she had accidentally “absorbed” earlier, all over the hot tub, ruining the water and turning it to mud.
“I think we are done here” Twilight said, hurryingly getting out of the top. Rainbow and Rarity quickly followed.
***
“Finally! What took you guys so long?” Spike said, seeing the two mares leaving the spa.
“Sorry Spike, we had a situation, courtesy of princess mud puke here”.
“Hey, what did I do?”
“Whatsoever listen guys, I’ve checked the list and we only have one place left to go. A pegasus named Fluttershy is supposed to be in charge for the music; her cottage is right this way.” He waved them forward while running out the door, looking back he added. “You guys gave me plenty of time to memorise the map of this town.”
Spike was right with that ’he knows where he was going’. Riding Twilight like some kind of… thing that you ride, soon the two ponies and the dragon reached the glade, where a meek pale yellow pegasus with pink mane was training some birds to sing on cue and in time.
When she heard somepony coming she curled together like a hedgehog. Rainbow couldn’t believe her eyes, she hadn’t seen Fluttershy since she was thrown out of Cloudsdale Academy and now she was here training birds.
“Fluttershy, is that you?” the little pegasus looked with a single eye up to the rainbow maned alicorn that had spoken her name, then flew on her to give the biggest most heartfelt hug ponykind had seen.
“Oh Rainbow Dash, is that really you? I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing in Ponyville?”
“Wait, you two know each other?” interrupted Twilight.
“Know each other, heck Twilight, we were class and roommates in Cloudsdale
“Actually, we were two years apart from each other but that’s okay” Fluttershy said in a voice too quiet that a pony could’ve heard it.
“Fluttershy, this is my lady-in-waiting Twilight; Twilight, this is my old friend Fluttershy.”
“Pleasure, this is Spike” Twilight continued, indicating her dragon familiar.
The sight of him made Fluttershy loosen up, she bumped into Twilight and started talking to Spike directly as if he had been a pony
“Oh, a baby dragon. I love baby dragons, they are just so cute and…” Fluttershy went on for a while. Twilight took this chance to speak with Dash.
“So, you know Fluttershy. What was she doing in the Cloudsdale academy that normally is just for nobles, like the school for gifted unicorns? And why didn’t you say anything when we were in the spa.”
“What?” the alicorn had been watching her old friend playfully chasing the purple dragon. “I’m sorry Twilight, but I don’t usually pay attention to what you say… Anyway,” looking at the sun hanging low on the horizon, “we better head back, I’ve got a disturbing lack of midday powernaps today, and I have a schedule to keep too, you know. I’ll tell you all about Fluttershy later.
***
“So Twilight, I’ve been thinking that I should take the bed and you should sleep on the floor” Rainbow said as they came closer to the library where it had been arranged they will stay for they trip.
“What? Why shouldn’t I be the one who gets the bed?”
“Because I’m the one who’s the princess?”
“I need my naps more than you do.”
“No you don’t”
“Yes I do”
“No you don’t”
“Yes I do”
“Why can’t you just go to a hotel?”
“Because then we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Hey where did you even hear that there was only one bed in the house?”
“I didn’t.”
“Ah, you are impossible Rainbow. Now finally, we are here.” Twilight said as she stopped in front of the door to the library that had been built in an enormous hollow tree.
“Wow, it sure is dark in here.” Twilight noticed as she and Rainbow walked into the main hall.
“Yeah, I can’t see a thing.”
“Yea, we better get some… wait, Rainbow, can’t you see in the dark?”
“SURPRISE!” Everypony in town seemed to say, jumping out from behind the furniture and bookcases. The hyperactive earthpony from this morning seemed to be leading them. She went up to Rainbow and Twilight jumping all the while.
“Hi! Remember me? I’m Pinkie Pie. I saw you guys fly into town this morning. I saw you and I thought: Wow! A princess and a purple miss grumpy face, you definitely need a party, so I gathered all my friends, and all their friends and friends, and we all came together to get you a big old ‘Welcome to Ponyville Party’.”
The princess looked pleased and was beaming like, well, a rainbow, though the purple unicorn looked anything but amused.
“Oh, this is totally what I need.” Twilight said sarcastically.
“I know, this is amazing. Thank you Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow said either ignoring or simply not getting Twilights sarcasm.
***
An hour later when Celestia’s sun was gone long ago, Rainbow peeked her head up the stairs to see where her grumpy friend had gone off to. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, she was lying in a bed with a pillow over her head.
“What are you doing Twilight, you’re missing the party.”
“If you haven’t noticed yet: All ponies in this town are crazy! Now I can’t do any studying and, even worse, I can’t even sleep.”
“What are you talking about, Twi? These ponies are amazing. I can’t believe I wasted so much time in snobby old Canterlot, thinking these ponies would be lame.” Turning her head back down the stairs and yelling loud enough to drown the music:
“Hey Pinkie, I’m ready for another!”
“Okey dokey lokey. Oh, and Dashie, tell Twilight she better comes down here, Fluttershy’s chasing the purple dragon again.”
Turning her head and pushing the pillow tighter around her head Twilight said: “Oh, I hope she is talking about Spike.”
***
Several hours later, how many Twilight couldn’t tell, but the music was finally starting to die down. From where had that pink pony got a DJ anyway in this shithole of a town anyway?
“Ah, finally, I can get some sleep.” Twilight said relieved. She had just entered the first blissful step towards oblivion when Rainbow's cocky voice once again drove away the rest from her sleep deprived mind.
“Hey Twilight, common, the party is moving to the town hall, you’re going to miss the celebration!”
“Just please tell me that no more ponies have been chasing a purple dragon.” Twilight’s groggy voice said.
“Everypony has been chasing a purple dragon, we even made a game of it; you should have seen Spike, that dragon can party.”
“Just go away, and let me sleep”
“But then you’re gonna miss the Summer Sun Celebration.” Twilight’s eyes shot open.
“Now!? It is now?”
“Well, not now now, but it’s in like five minutes or so, common.” And with that Rainbow was already gone.
Shaking her head in attempt to stay awake, Twilight galloped down the stairs and towards the Town hall. On her way she looked at the full moon shining ominously above, with a crater of a pony’s face on one side.
“I really hope Celestria is right, that this really is just an old mare’s tale.”
Reaching the town hall, she was surprised to see Rainbow standing outside.
“Aren’t you going in Rainbow?”
“Nah, I can’t face mom right now, this town have really made me thinking”
“Well, that’s a first.” Twilight said dryly walking in to the others.
Rainbow heard the fanfare boom through the door, and she saw though the window her mother standing on the balcony in all her armoured glory.
“Hm, that’s strange, she doesn’t usually wear her ceremonial battle armour.”
Then she saw it, a spark emitting from the ground at the centre of the room that quickly grew into an intricate sigil, a double four pointed star with four crescent moons pointing inward, drawn by blue-white light.
If Rainbow had bothered to pay attention when she went to The School for Gifted Unicorns, she would have known, like a certain purple pony now did, that this was a summoning font to the lunar plane.
She did not notice her unicorn companions dread, nor hear her voice and what she said, for in the same moment, four great lightning bolts struck the four corners of the star at once, followed a split second later by a fifth bolt, shining a hundred times more powerful than the others, drowning the room in light.
When Rainbow got her vision back, the room was covered in a thick grey fog, and from above her a menacing laughter could be heard.
Author's Note
1) I've designed the Luna sigil here: link Unfortunatly I can't add images to stories
2) This is a rework of the old version. I have had it for a while but I wanted to wait to publish it until I was ready to publish the second part too.
Act II - Triels and Harmony (part I)
As the fog began to clear Rainbow glimpsed a pony in the middle of what was left the town hall. It looked like a dark version of her mother. Instead of white, her coat was midnight blue, instead of an aurora her hair was like a star filled sky. Like her mother, and so very much unlike her own, it was saturated with magic and waved in an ethereal wind.
Above her, looking down on her from the balcony stood her the empress of ponykind, her mother Celestia in all her divine glory. She wore her massive battle armour, the armour she had often seen in its showcase behind the thone, but never actually seen her wear.
Covered from horn to hoof in brillaint white and gold, even her wings were covered in the glintering adamantium armour.
Already larger then any known pony alive or dead, the massive armour made her look even larger. Rainbow doubted she could even lift the set. She had once tried to sneak into the showcase to play dress up, because honestly it did look kind of awesome, but she hadn’t even gotten half passed the first look before she was caught by the royal guards. After that her mother had given her such a spanking that she almost couldn’t sit for a week.
Comparing the two the dark twin looked almost naked, despite all ponies almost always being naked, yet there was a power over her that poked at the very tip of her horn. She stared at Celstia with more then mere defiance. This wasn’t like one of her own temper tantrums when she didn’t want to follow her mothers orders or an upstart noble that wanted more then his due. She had an aura of confidence that told her that she would not only challenge Celestia’s word, but her very right to rule, and that she would overthrow her.
She could be only one pony.
“Luna” Princess Rainbow said, stepping into the entrance.
“Rainbow, what are you doing here?” Celestia said; looking positively chocked at seeing her daughter here, in the dirtpony town of Ponyville.
The night goddess wasted no time while her foe was distracted stroke. With magic Rainbow couldn’t even begin to imagine she wrapped Celestia in a liquid force field that seemingly froze her in place. This woke up the terrifying ponies in the town hall that had all been frozen in magical fear with the arrival of the night goddess. Freed from their trance a full blown panic erupted on the floor and in the air. Ponies fled in every direction out the windows, the whole in the roof the lunar goddess arrival had created, one particularly large red stallion disregarded the structure of the house all together and fled though the walls. Others were quick to follow in the whole he had made. The only way they didn’t flee was though the door where Rainbow stood, nopony would puss past a princess even with the situation as it were.
Smirking at her handiwork, and looking with satisfaction that the ponies had all fled with her presence the dark goddess went over to face Rainbow who seemed to be as frozen as the mortal ponies had been only moments before although no spell had bound her.
“Rainbow Dash princess of the sky” walking directly in front of her niece.
Rainbow had a large lump in her trout that she just didn’t seem to could get rid of. After gulping a few times she stammered “yea” as she looked into the eyes of a goddess who was not her mother and whose intentions she couldn’t even begin to understand.
“Princess Rainbow, listen carefully for this is important and we do not have time to repeat, the spell we cast will only last for moments. Everything thou have ever heard is a lie. We sent thee the letter that brought thee to Ponyville so thou might see her rule for the tyranny it truly. Thou must avoid capture at any cost and find the Elements of Harmony that has lied dormant since her greatest betrayal.” From the darkblue magic of her horn a gloving silver tome materialised and glided down to the tiny princess.
“Take this book it will tell thee of our quarrel and find our lunar priestess she will guide thee to the Elements.” Luna looked like she was about to say more, but at that moment the forcefield that surrounded the empress wavered. Celestia was moving towards its edges. She moved in slowmotion, but she moving none the less; and she did not look happy.
“We don’t have more time” With that she teleported both herself and the empress to a place unknown but even as she disappeared her voice continued to hang in the air.
“Recover the Elements of Harmony, use them to purge thy mother of the evil that has infected her heart, and most importantly remember…” A loud bang was heard and then all was silent.
***
Rainbow walked in silence though the streets of Ponyville where a full panic was in swing that included the standard looting of the stores. The reason why the villages was in a total panic became apparent to her a moment later when she looked up after noticing the strange dancing of her shadow.
The sky, it was divided. The Sun and the Moon was up at the same time, half of the sky, half of the sky was starfilled black with the moon shining softly, the other half of the sky was the same bright blue colour as her coat with an angry sun in the middle shining brightly on its puny subjects below. The two skies were divided by an invisible but incredibly sharp line. Black and blue tendrils constantly lashed at the other side both trying to gain dominance. The Sun and the Moon was not stationary rather they moved slightly behind the front lines enforcing the line every time it looked like there could be a breach.
What she saw was nothing short of an all out war between two gods, no wonder ponies were panicking.
Remembering the book she had received she thought that the best thing she could do was to find Twilight and ask her about these Elements that Luna mentioned. With a course set she cantered quickly towards the library certain that that must be were her lady-in-waiting was waiting.
***
Twilight was doing anything but wait as she frantically dug though the books throwing them in every direction in the already poorly organised library.
“Where is it where is it” she halfway screamed to herself, completely oblivious to the four mares that now stared at her with interest.
“Where is what sugercube?” she heard somepony say from behind her. Turning around she saw that it was that cowmare with the Stetson hat accompanied by the three other ponies she had met yesterday, one of which she had really hoped never to see again.
“What are you commoners doing here?” she said lightly irritated to the four ponies below her.
“Why we came to help darling.” The white unicorn said
“Yea noticed that ye looked like ye knew something about what the ligity split is going on, and as it properly aren’t any good for the crops with the sky being all topsy-turvy like that we thought we could lend you a hoof.”
“Or sixteen” the pink blue-eyed mare added.
“What? Oh nevermind, look unless you know where I can find a book about the Elements of Harmony there aren’t much you can do”
“The Elements of Harmony a reference guide” the pink coated pony read balancing a book she had just dug out seemingly from nowhere on her snout.
“Where did you find that?”
“It was under E’e”
“Oh this is perfect” Twilight said immediately taking the book from Pinkie with her magic. However her smile soon faltered as she saw that all the pages had been blackened from a fire that only the cover had managed to survive.
“Oh this is hopeless” Twilight said throwing the ruined book into the pile.
“Looking for a book Twilight?” Rainbow said trotting though the door with the white glowing moon tome still in her magic grip.
“The history of Equestria and the true origin of the Alicorns by Princess Luna” Twilight said reading the title. “Not exactly what we are looking for, we need to find out about the Elements so we can stop Nightmare Moon.”
“Twilight I don’t think that…”
“What? You saw her attack the princess and now the sky is broken” To emphasis her point a loud thunderclap was head overhead. Looking up though the door they saw that one of the blue tendrils had manage to grab one of the night stars which was now pummelling towards the ground, luckily it didn’t look like it would hit anywhere near Ponyville but it was incredibly unnerving none the less.
“Perhaps we should give that book a chance Twi, ah havn’t ever seen a book glow quite like that before, it gotta be magic or something”, the orange farmpony said.
“Okay we can give it a chance, but it better have some answers about the elements. Opening the book she read the first page
Dedicated to our unconceived
nieces and to our mentor
and eternal friend
Flutterstout the Vigilant.
Your bravery inspired us
Your loyalty changed us
Your wisdom made us see the light.”
“Who the hay is Flutterstout?” Twilight asked the room. Nopony noticed that one of the seemed to shrink a little by the mention of the name.
Flipping a few pages she came to some kind of introduction to the confusing tome. It seemed to be about time.
Time have always been difficult to measure in Equestria as every constant, from the sun to moon and stars, for as long as anypony can remember, have been controlled been controlled by pony hooves and horns.
So instead of scales and numbers we talk about ages, divided by significant events. In Equestria today there have been seven ages, but as you are reading this we stand on the precipice of the eight. The seven passed ages are:
- The Preeclasical Age
- The Classical age
- The Age of Hyperiun
- The first Luna-Celestial age
- The Age of Discord
- The second Luna-Celestial age
- The age of treachery.
You may call the last something else, but for us it will always be remembered as the age were we were betrayed by the one we trusted the most.
The preclasical age accounts for all time from before the founding of Equestria. Famous ponies from this age is wizards like Starswill the bearded and Clover the clever, the later was one of the mares that found the Fire of Friendship, and the first unicorn to serve in the triumvirate that ruled Equestria in the classical age.
The Classical age is sadly the one we know least about, as much of what was writing from that age was lost in the fires of Hyperion libricides.
Hyperion was the king of Equestria and his reign was as cruel as it was merciless. He was also the first of the immortal ponies known as alicorns, that posses both wings and a horn. We are called alicorns after the unicorns horn, as we are magic incarnate, having all the traits of the three tribes and in a much purer form.
It is unknown how Hyperiun came to be, but the few glimpses of records from the clasical age that we saw, spoke of a terribly and powerful unicorn necromancer committing crimes on ponydom, that we cannot even begin to imagine.
Hyperion had two daughters, princess Celestia, and we Princess Luna, both inheriting his immortality. He also had sons, and although he favoured them more, they were always born as either unicorns or pegasi.
We were small back then, and very much afraid of our dreaded father that in every way seemed like an all-powerful and unstoppable god. He made us feel weak and powerless next to his mighty status, just like he did to all of ponydom.
It wasn’t until Celestia and I meat Flutterstout, that we started believing that things could be different, that we could make a difference.
Flutterstout was a pegasus and leader of the resistance ageist Hyperion’s rule. Time and again she eluded his traps, and never once did she sink to his level of bestiality.
She thought us the true meaning of friendship, of the values Equestria was founded on, she thought us to be brave, thought us that there is always hope, always light, even in the darkest of night, and thought us to believe that a tyrant would always fall no matter how powerful.
Thus started our long fight ageist our father, to free the ponies of Equestria. We were victorious in the end, but victory came at a too high a price. Flutterstout was mortally wounded in the final battle, and never saw the new Equestria she fought so hard to help us create.
Our vengeance towards our father was merciless. We wanted to kill him, we did everything we could to kill him, but nothing we did could permanently destroy his body. So we left him in the depth of Tartarus with his mind all but shattered hopping that it would forever hold him fast. We were wrong, so very wrong, but for a few centuries Equestria knew peace.
Then he broke out. It took us a long time to even realise that it was him, as the creature that immerged from Tartarus was as alien from a pony as it could possibly be. This new demon conquered Equestria, his chaotic power having us completely overwhelmed.
Beaten and broken we used the last of our strength to flee to the Everfree Forest, the one place that seemed immune to his taint. Their we founded a resistance in the spirit of Flutterstout But it wasn’t until we discovered the Elements of Harmony that we got a real chance of victory ageist the monster that had once been our father.
The Elements whose origin even we do not know, was hidden in an ancient tomb hidden right beneath our rebel headquarters. There are six elements of which the most obvious is magic, but magic can do little without being fuelled by the fire of friendship that the first settler ponies discovered back when they were threatened by the windigoes. These five elements are honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity and loyalty.
I am talking about them here, because it is important for you to know them, for you my nieces must wield them, like we once did to defeat our father, so must you wield them to defeat your mother.
Because after our second victory Celestia grew mad. Perhaps it was a final curse from our father, perhaps, it was just simple ambition that had poisoned her soul but she wanted the power all to herself, saying that she deserved her position. When I tried to protest she banished me to the moon. I have been able to see very little from my exile, but fear that she have become very much like our father and if so you too is trapped in her web of fear. But know that you can defeat her, even if you are young, for with the elements you are unstoppable.”
Twilight put the book down having reached the end of the chapter.
“This can’t be right.” Twilight said “Empress Celestia isn’t a tyrant”
“She sure seems like one to me, after what her goons did to ma Mah and Pah. Apple Bloom was just a newborn back then, she never even knew them because of her”
“What happened to them?” Twilight asked with the first hint of genuine concern for a common pony she had expressed all weekend.
“Ah don’t wanna talk about it”
“Please don’t pressure Applejack dear, we may never had seen quite eye to eye on most things, especially on what we can do against the empress, but we are of one mind when it comes to her nature, she is evil pure and simple and I would do anything to see her pay” the white unicorn said with uncharacteristically unladylike determination.
“Pinkie Pie” Twilight said with rising panic in her voice.
“One of her goons gave me a black eye when I tried to throw him a party. Why would he do that I just wanted to make him happy.”
“Rainbow surely you can’t be aggrieving with…”
“What I saw yesterday only confirms what these ponies are saying. We have to stop her”
“You are not stopping anypony” a harsh male voice said from the door before they had time to listen to what the meekest member of their group had to say. It was one pony that the young princess recognised all to well. The very same unicorn she had blasted after he had beaten up the poor weathermare Derpy.
He looked positively furious at her, and had a whole squadron of heavily armed guards behind him.
***
North of the shining city of Canterlot, in the shadow of the mighty mount Canterhorn, lies the steaming city of New Canterlot. Informally known as the commoners’ capital, it houses all the aspect of Equestria’s central government that the old city of Canterlot neither has the space nor the desire to hold. Among the later is ESCAPED headquarters, the Celstias dreaded secret police, among the former is the supreme command of the armed forces, housed in a giant heptagonal building complex known simply as Septagon.
In this giant complex known for its order and rigid discipline a less then disciplined stallion was sprinting though the halls.
The young old-mauve coloured stallion with two bloodshot dilated eyes as a cutiemark was galloping down the corridor with a scroll in his mouth. A mare in a light blue uniform and a tiny gold star on each of her shoulders had to spring for her dear life to avid him running into her. An officer cadet was not as lucky an accidentally crashed into a water cooler soaking himself and the floor in the process as he passed.
The stallion saw none of this as he continued his neck breaking pace down the hall until he came to two giant doors. Above them stood “Equestria’s Armed Forces Supreme command Central Office” Hardly without thinking he focused a ray of magic on the door handles turning them, throwing the double doors open with a bang, frightening everypony in the large office.
He wasted no time in greetings, and for the moment completely ignoring the twenty or so large earthpony stallions that was nearing him threateningly for breaking in unannounced into the very heart of Equestria’s defence. On the other side of the room was a dark brown secretary disk occupied by a brown mare that had been busy filing her hooves until his untimely arrival had made her drop her hooffile in fright
Correcting her uniform and trying to look professional she got an annoyed look on her face when she saw who it was that had barged in unannounced. Unfortunately she had to call the security off, for now, it would have been so sweet to have gotten that sorry ass colt thrown in the can. However she still wanted to give him a piece of her mind.
“Major Panic Attack what do you think you are doing, you can’t just be barking in her like…”
“I need to speak with the supreme commander sub-lieutenant Pennywise.” Major PA said without a hint of hesitation and with much urgency in his voice. Sub-lieutenant Pennywise snared.
“You need to make to make an appointment like everypony else, even if you are a chief intelligence officer. And if you have a letter you can just give it to me and I will…”
“This is a distress message from Empress Celestia, code Burning Scarlet” He said matter-of-factly as if it were an everyday occurrence.
“Bur-bur-bur-burning Scarlet? oh my, does that mean?”
“Yes”
“Go right ahead.” She stepped out of his way, and hurried back to her desk, desperately trying to organise her files (and find her file) before the storm, that was sure to come, hit.
Whiteout wasting more time with the mare, Major PA went to the big doors themselves. He still had the good the sense of knocking before stepping into the lions den; however he didn’t wait for a reply.
Inside the large oval office, was a likewise oval table, large enough to hold the entire supreme command council, to the left was a magical two way waterfall and to the right an animated 3D map of all of Equestria that showed all the current military positions.
At the end of the large table was a chair. Well there were chairs along the entire table, but this one was impossible large and padded with what looked like leather, but what kind of pony would ever want to sit in that? At the moment it was turned the other way towards the window with a direct view to the backside of Canterhorn and the divided sky overhead.
A sense of dread fell over the major as he stood in the room, a dread almost as when he first saw the sky this morning.
The Supreme Commander also known as the the Oberst-General (highest general), was renowned as the most brilliant military commander of their age, but at the same time also as the most ruthless. Multiple rumours surrounded the quiet but deadly general; the very chair he now looked at was an example of this. Could it truly be leather, nopony knew, but the rumours were plenty, the most popular rumour was that it was made from the defeated zebra king after the generals successful conquest of Zimbrica.
Regardless of the rumours, he was now in the OG’s office, and had a report to.
“Your Excellency I…”
“I understand you have a letter for me.” A quite voice said from behind the chair.
“Ah yes here” he took it out of his mouth and used his magic to levitate it over to the desk.
A beige hoof was seen taking the letter. After a moment that seemed like an eternity where the only sound was the sound of Panic’s beating heart, the pony behind the chair finally spoke again.
“Have this been confirmed Major Panic?”
“Yes I double cheeked, it is from the empress herself; there is no doubt.”
“Then send out the seekers, we have a renegade princess to catch.”
Act II - Triels and Harmony (part II)
“I have never seen a pony so generous before” Pinkie Pie said to Rarity, as they trotted though Ponyville towards the entrance to the Everfree Forest.
“Giving away a 200 caret flawless sky blue diamond, it must have been one of a kind”
“It were” Princess Rainbow said tracing a hoof to the now big empty hole in her peytral. At the same time her lady-in-waiting rolled her eyes and mumbling “was” under her breath.
“Oh pish-poch it was just a diamond darling. I’m sure I can find you another pretty stone that would suit you just as lovely when this is all over.”
“It wasn’t just, any kind of Diamond Rarity. Mom had it enchanted especially for me after I had gotten my cutiemark as a cute-ceañera present. That was the last time she was actually proud of me.”
“Enchanted?” Rarity asked now curious as to the gem she had just giving away. “What kind”
“Yea what she did was eh, Twilight!” Rainbow looked hopefully at her lady-in-waiting for help.
Twilight who had been busy studying the tome she received earlier but got snapped back to reality by Rainbows plead. Clearing her trout she gleefully went into lecture mod:
“The diamond Rainbow wore is known as the “sky diamond” It was created twelve years ago by Empress Celestia herself to amplify pegasi wind and weather magic for its wielder. It was giving to Princess Rainbow Dash with the intent of making it easier for her to lean and master new spells within her special talent which is the sky. The enchantment of the stone is relic levelled as only the strongest of charms can affect let alone improve on an alicorns natural strengths. For an ordinary unicorn the sky diamond can grant him the full power of a pegasus giving him both horns and wings at the same time. However it won’t make him into a true alicorn, it won’t make him immortal or invulnerable and its effect will last only for as long as he wields it.”
After having said the last “it” Twilight finally stopped to breath, everypony looked at her expectedly for her to continue, as it seemed like she ended her sentence rather abruptly, however no more words came.
Everypony was just about to trying to go back to topic when Twilight started Talking again.
“The diamond itself is however not so relevant to our situation, Rainbow have a little more difficulty using magic now but it would just be like talking the training wheels of a bike.” Taking a, this time, short break to breathe she continued.
“What is relevant to our situation however, is this book she provided. It describes in great detail the Elements of Harmony, , a series of artefact that would make the Sky Diamond look like a filly’s first cantrip, including their final resting place. The Elements are in a place called The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Apparently this was where the Elements were first found, and where Empress Celestia and her alleged sister led the resistence against Discords rule.”
“Well then lets just go their already” Rainbow said impatiently, already on the brink of taking off.
“Not so fast, there is a problem” Twilight said holding Rainbow in her tail in her magic, without really looking at her.
“Yea Ah you are the only one except Fluttershy over here that can fly. Ah think it would be best if we stick together as a group.
“A wise tactical observation Applejack” Lady Twilight said somewhat snidely, “but what I was really referring to was the fact that nopony knows where the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters is. Even this book didn’t mention anything about it’s location only that it is somewhere within the Everfree Forest. A region that aren’t easy to cover on hoof as it is almost 1.2 million square kilometres in size.
“Wow that’s big”
“Big doesn’t even begin to cover it. The Everfree Forest is the largest unclaimed wilderness in Equestria, we can spend our entire lives wandering around these trees looking for the castle and never getting any closer to finding it.
“So ye’all saying that ye need a map of how to get there?” the orange applepony asked helpfully.
“Why that would be spending Applejack a map of the Everfree Forest, why didn’t I think of that? I will just go to the nearest cartography office in Canterlot and asks them nicely for their best topographical map of the Everfree Forest.” Twilight said smiling manically at Applejack.
“Except”, she continued “The Everfree Forest is a terra incognita there isn’t any maps, and WE ARE BUCKING WANTED CRIMINALS WITH HALF THE ROYAL GUARD AFTER US.” Twilight finished shooting. A large drop of her salvia landed on AJ’s face. She quickly dried it off with her hat, and then continued completely unflattened by Twiligts outburst.
“As Ah was saying Ah think we might need a map, and Ah think Ah know a pony that has one.”
“You WHAT?” Twilight screamed. “Why didn’t you tell us”
“Well that was what Ah was trying to”
“Applejack dear, you cannot be suggesting that we go talk to her?” Rarity said looking positively distressed
“That is exactly what Ah am suggestion. Who knows the forest better then her and she still owns me a favour after how I helped her back when, you know”
“Oh is this a game? Who is her? Is it somepony I know, somepony nice? Or OHH somepony new? We should hold her a party with cakes and balloons and warr…” Pinkies cheerful frantic voice fell over into a drool as she dropped stone cold on the forest ground with a needle sticking out her trout. Fluttershy had just enough time to scream before she too was put down, but her warning gave Twilight just enough time to put up a shield around the reminding four members of the group as they were assailed by a virtual storm of needles from above.
***
For the second time that day, the stallion known as Panic Attack came rushing into the generals office. This time he didn’t even wait to explain his errand for Pennywise but busted right through the OG’s door horn first, right into general Stepwise.
As he regained his bearing he noticed more then twenty pairs of eyes looking at him, earthponies, pegasi and unicorns, all wearing double laurelled peaked caps and all of them having golden stars on their shoulders.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble major Pain” General Stepwise started with clenched teeth “would you mind taking your horn out of my, will you please get out” he finished almost crying.
Quickly retracting his head, and seeing the two starts decorating his unfortunate victim’s shoulders, Panic said “Sergeant Major General I am sorry if I caused you any discomfort I had an important message to the Oberst General and I…”
“What is the message Major Blunder?” the pony at the head of the table said.
Doing his best to ignore his new nickname, the luckless major responded. “Oberst-General, your Excellency, ma'am, the stalkers, they failed.”
There was a moment uncomfortable silence, as all eyes looked at him, then the revered Oberst General spoke.
“It does not surprise me, considering it was your operation and your ponies major. That was why I called this war council. This isn’t just any groups of fugitives we are talking about. Did you at least learn of their location and destination?”
“Yes your Excellency, they are travelling in the Everfree Forest, and I belive their destination is something called: The Palace of The Royal Pony Sisters, I don’t know where that is thought.”
“I figured you wouldn’t, it’s a well kept secret that few ponies know of. Was there anything else?”
“Yes your Excellency, while our targets were travelling thought the Everfree Forest the seekers noticed that the wild beasts seemed to avoid them, the team only barely avoided a manticore attack and lost one member to a rouge cockatrice. Hope to retrieve him later for depetrification but had to abandon him for the mission. For the light of Celestia we haven’t managed to figure out how they do that.”
“Yes I wonder” the five star general said, chuckling to some inside joke.
“Ma’am?”
“Regardless there is no way they can get to the ruins without a map and I know of only one pony that could have such a map.” With an unspoken command her adjutant had went to her file cabinet and retrieved a single picture, then handed it over to the major, that graphed it with his magic; as he saw the picture, his eyes widened in shock.
“I trust from your expression that you know who that is, or rather what she is” Nodding silently he put the picture down on the disk.
“The best place to intercept our targets is right after they have left the periphery of her cabin.”
“Why not before General? If there is truly one of them…” he led the last word hang in the air for a few moments with venom in his voice. “…living out there, couldn’t we catch both her and our targets at the same time?”
“Are you questioning my orders major?” She said in a quiet but threatening voice.
“No Ma’am, your Excelency, I would never do that, your word is my command” he said practically grovelling at her feet, despite her sitting on the other side of a table along with twenty other generals that all looked at him silently, except general Stepwise that just couldn’t seem to get comfortable and hadn’t been paying attention.
After a long unnerving silence the honoured Oberst-General continued.
“There was a reason why I didn’t take her in when I could, why I didn’t do ESCAPED’s job for them. Why work for them, when they can work for us”
Like a supervillain from a James Hoof movie, the esteemed mare with five stars on her shoulder and an arrow in the bull’s-eye of a target on her flank pressed a red bottom on the side of her chair. A moment later a blue maned mare in a black uniform entered the office.
“Major this is captain Nightshade from ESCAPED, captain Nightshade, this is major Panic of the unintelligence department.” This jest made the seriously looking mare giggle, and several of the generals couldn’t help but laugh too, you could say much about the OG but she still had a keen sense of humour.
A moment later she raised her hoof ordering them to silence.
“Captain Nightshade leads a highly specialised ESCAPED team called the shadowbolts” She said to Major panic, then turning to Captain Nightshade she added
“I’m sure that ESCAPED and the army will work effectively together under my command for this most important mission.” She said looking at her with her one good eye. A moment later the normally stoic Nightshade visibly shaken by her gaze gave her a silent salute.
“I called you here, because you are the fastest fliers available. You are to fly to these coordinates in the Everfree Forest with our newest weapon in non-lethal warfare, the terror gas bomb. You are to leave with all haste if you are to reach the destination before your target, Major PA will brief you on the way. That is all.”
Satisfied with her order the OG turned her attention back to her generals to finalise the battleplans; however Panic Attack had one more question to ask.
“Wait your Excellency it is theoretically possibly to resist the effect of terrorgas, it would be more effective if we instead just used lethal force in order to…”
“NO” The Oberst General said in a voice as high as a normal ponies speech, which for her was almost the same as yelling. Her wings eject and her one good eye staring him into the ground.
“You will not use lethal force under circumstance, the princess and her companions must not be harmed.”
“But the empresses’ letter clearly stated that…”
“I am the supreme commander of her armies. I stopped the Griffon incursion; I conquered Zebrica in her name, I alone interpret her orders; do not question my authority - ever. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
“Yes your Excellency” Panic said bowing his head not daring to meet his commander’s gaze. Nightshade stood at the side, glad the OG’s ire was not directed at her, for the moment completely forgetting her own anger in having to work for the army.
“Once you have them in your custody, unharmed and in good health you will wait for me and my ponies to arrive, and don’t fail me again.
Bowing silently and trying to shollow that lump he had in his troat he walked away, as he reached the door, he turned to the OG and the other generals again, raised his right hoof and with a high clear voice loud voice whit only the smallest hint of trepedition: “Hail Celestia”
The hail Celestia’s from the generals were less enthusiastic and more of a mumble. After he had left the meeting room one of the generals looked at the OG and asked:
“Your Excellency, forgive me if I am being insolent, but you don’t honestly expect that dimwit and these ESCAPED Shadowbolts to succeed do you? I mean this is a princess of Equestria we are talking about even if she is very young she is still an alicorn.”
“Of course not” she answered quietly. But he doesn’t have to succeed; all he has to do is to slow them down, which will give us the time to lay our trap.”
“Trap ma’am?”
“Yes, once they arrive at the ruins they will be up to some surprise. Gather around gentlecolts, this is what we are going to do…”
***
The six mares made their way thought the thick folia of the ancient forest in total silence. Pinkie and Fluttershy was still unconscious and was carried in Rarity’s magic field, despite her being the weakest magic user of the group. Originally Twilight was asked to carry them, but after the battle she had been tired and irritated and in her anger had said some pretty mean things about commoners and earthponies that she now regretted. Rainbow had immediately offered to carry then instead, but Rarity had said that that was no job for a princess, and despite her protest had insisted on carrying them herself.
“Well here we are” Applejack said breaking the hour long silence as the reached a very creepy looking cabin in a hollowed out tree in the middle of the dark forest.
“Oh thank you” Rarity said sweating in a most unladylike fashion as she struggled to hold Pinkie and Fluttershy afloat with her horn. Gently she placed them on the ground and then decided to collapse next to them.
“What is this place? No pony I know would live in a place like this; and these masks don’t look like anything I have seen in Equestria before.
“Slight offence sugercube but no pony ye know would live in Ponyville either, considering how overrun it is with commoners and earthponies and all”
“I said I was sorry”
“And Ah’ll forgive ye, eventually, but first you promise to stop that prejudice nonsense especially around we are to meet.”
“Who is she anyway? You haven’t said much after you mentioned she had a map of the forest?”
“Ah didn’t feel like talking, we needed to go walking, and you’ad said plenty. But now that we are here ah gotta be honest with you, she aren’t exactly a…”
“Zegro” Twilight yelled, putting up a defensive barrier around her friends when the door opened to the cabin and a hooded figure emerged.
“Oh boy here she goes again. Now Twi Ah can explain.”
“Get back Applejack your friend have been abducted by a zegro”
“Gosh darn it Twilight ma friend is a zegro” Applejack yelled, but immediately regretted it, seeing the hurt look on the zebra’s face. Twilight was so shocked that she momentarily let go of her forcefield, and Pinkie despite being unconscious seemed to frown.
“I hear commotion at my door and see a pony that said I should never come back. And now I see you spread words most dire. Are you here to lynch me, for your hearts desire?”
“What Zecora Ah would never…” Turning to Twilight she immediately continued. “…Ah for peas sake Twi, put that shield down before ye hurt somepony.
“But she is a zebra a zegro, her entire race consist of nothing but vile cannibals that kills ponies for fun and food.” She shuddered at the last word and kept her eyes firmly locked on the zebra not taking her guard down for a second. Zecora however looked more amused the insulted.
“Twi Ah got’a be honest whit you, zebra’s aren’t like that at all”
“That’s not true, all the books I’ve read says that…”
“All the books you’ve read are wrong Twi. Look Ah know your type Twi, our last librarian Dusk Shine. He was booksmart you know a real brainiac, thinking he knew everything, but he was also in many ways so incredibly naïve. He was much like you, even had the same colour of coat. He got a job as our towns librarian three years ago. At first he was happy with his books, thinking they had all the answers, but then he started seeing things. Things that didn’t match what he had read. So he started writing things down. That was his first mistake, his second was to actually send what he wrote up to Canterlot, thinking he could get it published. He got some surprise when ESCAPED agents suddenly came to his door.”
“Escaped agents?” Twilight asked tilted her head looking quite befuddled. Where did they escape from?
“yea ESCAPED” Thinking that that had cleared up everything. “Why do you think that the library was empty, and half the books were burned?” There weren’t much of Dusk and his research when these agents were done whit him.”
“They committed libracide?” Twilight said with horror in her voice.
“Libra what? No they just burned books, but that wasn’t the worst thing they did.”
“What can possibly be worse then some escaped agents burning books?”
“Dusk” Applejack signed took her hat off and holding it in front of her chest. Dusk and Ah we, Ah was just an old filly back then all depressed about ma folks being gone. Then Dusk came, he was so sweet, and said all the right things.” Applejack said whit a big smile on her face and a tear in her eye.
“And then they took him too” She cried throwing her hat on the grown. “To the mines, they said. They always ships ponies to the mines. It’s almost been a year now. He is properly dead by now, for his sake, Ah hope he is.”
Applejack, the normally proud stoic farmmare was in tears. She tried to hide it but it was obvious. Twilight was hugging her, her spell forgotten.
“Please Twi, trust your eyes, not your books, look at Zecora and see her for what she is. Don’t make the same mistake Dusk did, Ah don’t wanna lose another friend.”
Friend. The word rang in Twilights head. Applejack considered her a friend. She bared her heart for her, told her a story she properly hadn’t told to anypony before, despite how much it obviously still hurt, in order for her to see the truth.
She looked at the zebra before her, the exotic jewellery, her strange striped coat and Mohawk mane, but also at her big blue eyes, that held much wisdom and none of the savagery and bloodlust she had been told would be their.
“Taking a deep breath she stepped forward, and with a leap of faith she said “I trust you.”
“Welcome” was all the zebra said.
***
Zecora had indeed been wise and knew many secrets of the wild, including an antidote to the poison that had inflicted Pinkie and Fluttershy. An hour later and they were on their way with the map that showed the way.
Pinkie was once again jumping cheerily as if nothing had ever happened, but Fluttershy seemed to be a little more wary and meaped in fright of every shadow that as much as resembled a pony.
The group followed Twilights as she led them though the forest with the map Zecora had generously provided them floating in front of her.
None of the six mares saw the darkly uniformed pegasi flying high above the Canopy, nor the strange flying machine that flew next to them. The seven pegasi flew in a V formation with the flying machine in their centre.
A force field of four different colours surrounded each of the strange machines propeller to avoid it from making a sound. Inside the machine was eight unicorns all wearing a standard green uniform. Two of them sat at the helm trying to keep the maschine in the right position between the seven pegasi. Four unicorns was in the middle of the machines interior busy concentration on keeping it silent, while the last two unicorns were at the rear standing next to a fat bomb that was twice their size.
“We are nearing the target area sir”. The only female member of the crew said to Major Panic that was looking nervously at the big bomb in front of him.
“I have just been in contact with captain Nightshade and she informs us that our targets are right ahead. We will make context in T minus two minutes.
“Do you think this will work, corporal Sunflower?” He said never taking his eyes of the bomb.
The amber coloured mare seemed to be taken aback a little by his question. How do you respond to a commanding officer when he starts questioning the mission he is in charge of? Not knowing what else to say she started reciting the facts.
“This is a level three, five tons chemical bomb. Even if we don’t hit our targets directly it covers over four square kilometres in psychosomatic gas, and with the Shadowbolts guiding us there is no way we can miss them.”
“Yes we will hit them, but will it work?”
“Sir I eh” Was all Corporal Sunflower would say, looking back at her apparatus she was reminded of the imminentness of their mission.
“T minus 30 seconds, we must open the hatch and be ready to fire”
Signing heavily Major PA responded:
“Well then, let’s do this thing” Pressing a bottom with his hoof a large hatch in the back of the flying machine. The win immediately hit them in their faces. Below them was nothing but forest for as long as they could see. It was depressing to see so much untamed wilderness but at the moment but at the moment he wasn’t even exited at dropping a little bit of Celestia’s light on this savage wilderness. He did smile a little when he looked up and saw the blue sky covering nearly two thirds of the sky and the dark stars being pressed increasingly close together, but only a little. He had no doubt that his empress would win, he had significantly more doubt, that he would.
With a sign he pressed another button and watched the bomb go down.
***
“ So, giggle at the ghostly
Guffaw at the grossly
Crack up at the creepy
Whoop it up with the weepy
Chortle at the kooky”
“They appears to be singing sir” Corporal Sunflower said as put down the headphones she had been using to listen in on their targets.
Major PA didn’t seem to hear her, he was too busy spying on the targets himself with his hoof held telescope. Looking was a little difficult as he had started to shake violently.
“NO!!!” he screamed violently throwing the telescope away. At the last moment before it would have been lost to the jungle forever Corporal Sunflower managed to grape it and levitate it back to the platform they were now sitting in. After they had dropped the bomb they had landed a safe distance to the side on top for the forest canopy.
“So you army guys mission backfired eh?” Captain Nightshade said as she nonchalantly rested on a branch above them.
“That is kind of typical for you isn’t it major?”
“Shut up” Major PA said but Nightshade continued unaffected
“And that boos of yours seemed real nice, she will properly reassign you to guard duty on the Evernight Tundra
“Shut up”
“I hear she has a little research facility up there where the sun never shines. It must be real fun to be a guard up there.
Shut up”
“Or perhaps you could transferee to us; we could always use another guard up in Gloom Valley”
“I said shut up!!” Panic screamed sending hundreds grapping the pegasus in his magic and sending hundreds of birds flying.
The other Shadowbolts were quick to react to the attempted strangling of their captain. This brought a very hostile mood on between the seven ESCAPED pegasi and the eight Army unicorns. The six pegasi looked like they were ready to attack the unicorns, and the unicorns four battlemages were likewise preparing spells. In the last moment the situation was diffused by captain Nightshade as she coughingly held up her hoof.
“Stand down soldiers no harm done” She said to her ponies. Turning to the major she added. “I won’t turn this into a fight between the army and ESCAPED but know that I am reporting you for this, you’ll be lucky to even get guard duty after this.”
Signing deeply the Major casually trotted below deck. There came a racket from below. Nightshade and her pegasi listened with puzzlement and didn’t see the cold sweat running down corporal Sunflowers forehead. A moment later a spectacle vaguely resembling a pony arose from the deck. Almost completely concealed behind the tinted glass you could just see the major’s emotionless face as he looked at the captain with an unreadable expression.
“You wouldn’t, you can’t” Nightshade said obviously starting to panic, as she saw the two multi barrelled contraptions on the sides of the walking machine.
However instead of doing what they all had feared he would do, the major turned his back to the Shadowbolt captain and jumped over the side of the platform. Three seconds later a large bump was heard. Both the unicorns and the pegasi went to the side of the platform to look for the major below. His machine had made a small crater where it landed but the metal contraption itself was completely undented.
A single jump from the machines legs and he was up walking the forest floor. He walked with determination in a straight line and did not let a small thing like trees stand in his way.
Nightshade wasn’t his problem. She was insolent like all filthy cloud kickers, but she wasn’t the pegasus that had put him out in this situation, put him out just to fail. He knew Celestia’s orders, her true orders; the supreme commander just wanted all the glory for herself.
Well to the hell with the Supreme Commander and to the hell with her rule of none lethal combat. He had gotten a mission to stop this renegades, and he would do so, by any means necessary.
Author's Note
This is the first and second part of the second act of the story. I decided to post it now, but it might be updated with a better version later, I just thought that I should put it up because it is never going to be perfect anyway. I hope you enjoy it.
