Forging Hope

by Marching Thunder

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04

Prologue

ForgingHope

By Marching Thunder

Prologue

Dragon Lands

….............................................................................

Within a large cave, an old, stiff unicorn mare slowly worked towards a desk against the wall. Her head was still held high though, a sense of purpose clear in her movements as she went along. Her coat was a faded, slightly white lavender that still held a slight sheen in the low light. Her mane was faded as well, long past it's prime of dark indigo with a pink stripe, now it was a grayish blue with a white-pink stripe. On her flank though was her cutie mark, one six pointed star atop another then surrounded by five smaller six pointed star, still as vivid as the day it had appeared so many decades ago.

With a measured pace, one likely brought about by the passing of time, the mare withdrew a scroll, ink, and quill from the desk and began to write.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I am sending you what will likely be my last letter, and sadly I doubt I will still be here for your reply so thus I want to pass onto you and Luna everything I have learned along with what you might consider my legacy. Doctor Whooves has also been around a great deal more than usual and has hardly left me, leading me to believe he knows what is coming.

Thus I am sending you the attached box which I pray shall never see the light of your day or the darkness of Luna's night. However, I fear that it will eventually be needed and so I send it to you with the instructions to give it to the most appropriate unicorn you can find when the time comes, be they an Element bearer or not.

In connection with the former for reasons I will establish shortly, I urge you, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna to begin strengthening the Elements of Harmony. Use any excess strength you two have to augment their power, urge them to take on a form where they can help protect their wielders and increase their strength.

Now I arrive at the heart of the matter concerning this letter. When I last wrote I had told of my explorations into the fields of scrying and predictions. With added knowledge from the dragons here in their lands I have made great and insightful leaps of knowledge about the coming decades and centuries. What I found was disturbing. I saw Equestria sliding into war in the far future. The war was against both dragons and griffins, though I saw members of both groups fighting alongside ponies.

What truly worried me was that as I scryed, I became aware that something was deeply wrong and there was some force within the visions I saw. At that point, whatever I was feeling within the visions began blocking my magic. All of my further attempts to scry into the future were blocked as well, I leave it to you, my Princess to realize what it means for something to block my magic.

In conclusion Princess Celestia, please do everything you can to prepare, quietly if you can for what I have seen.

Spike will deliver this letter and the box to you in person. I can't leave things up to chance, so I want them to go from my hooves, to his scales, to your hooves without chance of interception.

Your ever faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S.

Doctor Whooves will take me to Ponyvillie to join the rest when the time comes, and he'll let you know when it happens.

Thank you, for everything.

With the letter finished, Twilight sealed the scroll and laid several powerful enchantments on it and the box mentioned in the letter, ensuring only one of the two Princesses could open either of them.

Sighing tiredly, she took the two items in her magic and roused her dragon companion from his slumber. Once Spike was awake she gave him the letter and box and told him to deliver it personally to the Princesses and not to give up the items to anyone but Celestia or Luna, and only if something bad happened could he send them via Dragon Fire.

Spike was off, she watched him disappear as the sun descend closer and closer to the horizon. After the sun had finally set and she had taken the time to observe the entirety of the night sky including the beauty of the moon, Twilight retired to her bed inside and laid down to sleep.

And so she slept forever more.

Chapter 01

Forging Hope

By Marching Thunder

Chapter 1

Canterlot

….............................................................................

In the deepest sanctum of Canterlot Castle, Princess Celestia sat before a series of massive tomes, tracking her way through a maze of lines that tracked out a path of a certain pony's family tree. The white alicorn's face was a study in concentration as she worked her way across page after page of genealogy, poorly kept by lax bureaucratic ponies.

“Why haven’t I ever forced a reform of this part of the government? Their record keeping truly is terrible...” she thought.

Eventually though, she found what she needed; the name and last known address of the only current descendent of a certain lavender unicorn who she had cared for oh so much. She and Luna had already located the other five ponies that were at the end of their family trees and made preparations to bring them to Canterlot.

She was brought out of her work by the gental click of the door to her chambers as they were opened to admit somepony entrance. Turning to look, she found the midnight blue form of her sister Luna waiting patiently to be acknowledged just inside the doorway. The look Celestia gave her was apparently enough acknowledgement as Luna began speaking.

"Any luck finding Twilight Sparkle's descendant, sister?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," Celestia replied warmly, her face assuming its standard poker mask as she continued speaking. "I just found her actually, her name is Midnight Dawn and she is still residing in Ponyvillie." At the very end of the sentence a small smile quirked the edges of Celestia's mouth.

At that statement, Luna cocked an eyebrow at her sister and dead panned, saying, "You're kidding... You're kidding, right? You're telling me Twilight's one and only descendent is your current protégée?"

"The very same," Celestia replied with a tired grin, "It would seem fate has a strange sense of synchronicity, little sister."

"So it would seem," Luna agreed with a nod before leaving.

Once her sister was gone Celestia thought about the day she had taken Midnight Dawn as her protégée. Ever since she had trained Twilight, Celestia had begun attending the tests of every unicorn entering her school of magic to select a protégée. While none she had seen were as strong as Twilight, many were still capable enough causing her to train them. The idea that a unicorn could come along like Twilight with the ability to do so much good and not reach their potential had worried her, which was why she looked for protégées. Sadly she only was able to find suitable candidates every sixty years or so, but that hadn't hurt exactly.

Then Midnight had come along.

She had as much raw power as Twilight Sparkle did and maybe more, but so little control the concept of 'practice' was foreign to her as even basic telekinesis went awry under her command.

Midnight's practical exam had been to grow a small tree rather than hatch a dragon because cooling relations between the dragons and ponies had lead to fewer eggs for exams.

In the end Midnight had had to grow a tree, and what a tree it was.

Despite her protests to not do so, she had taken the exam and tried to grow the tree from a mere seed. The spell began simple enough, but quickly went out of control, the tree that Midnight had been attempting to grow quickly sprouting and then spreading out like a weed as it subsumed the very stonework of the castle with Midnight's magic feeding it like a super powered fertilizer.

By the time Celestia had arrived, hardly a minute into the debacle, nearly the entire tower was gone, replaced by the tree that had consumed it. To it's credit the tree did not cause any real harm, instead it had replaced the stone, forming itself into a perfect organic replica of the tower.

Inside the Princess had found four frightened examiners, and Midnight pass out on the floor crying from having put out so much magical energy. When Midnight had recovered, Celestia had taken her as her new protégée and started the long process of training her.

Fourteen years later, Midnight had left Celestia tutelage with the Princess's blessing and traveled Equestria and abroad before coming to to live in the town of Ponyvillie.

When she thought more about it, Celestia couldn't help but chuckle, even if dark times were ahead, fate had a certain sense of irony to it. Satisfied she regained her composure and called for a guard.

Tomorrow the summons would go out and the six elements of Harmony would be gathered together.

Chapter 02

Forging Hope

By Marching Thunder

Chapter 2

Manehatten

….............................................................................

The bright lights of the design shop illuminated the lone unicorn mare working away with a dozen strips of fabric and and too many pieces of thread to count. Her coat was a pure white with a beautiful sheen, her mane was highly stylized and a dark burgundy with a high gloss to it. Her cutie mark was a small flower that was made of what appeared to be cut crystal.

Her name was Dainty.

As she sewed away on her current project, she periodically picked up small gems from a container and sewed them into the dress. The dress in question was a new design for her company that would be put on display for the coming Spring season. Surrounding her were numerous ponyequins, most of them sporting designs that had already been completed. Unfortunately for dainty, she was not going to be finishing her current design.

A loud knocking came from the door to her shop, shocking her from her concentration and nearly causing her to mess up the dress she was working on. Muttering a stream of curses under her breath, dainty stood from her sewing machine and moved to the door, swinging it open with her magic to slam against the wall.

What awaited her was not what she expected.

What she had expected was some assistant, but what she found outside the door was four white, gold armored pegasus guards. None of them had even flinched at her slamming the door to meet them, anger clear on her face. Instead, the closest one stepped forward and spoke to her, his tone solid as a rock and serious.

“Miss Dainty?” he asked.

She could only nod in reply, shocked as she was at the sudden appearance of royal guards outside her door, for no reason she knew of. That was taken care of for the stunned unicorn thankfully.

“You have been summoned to Canterlot by her highness Princess Celestia and her highness Princess Luna for a matter of grave importance. We are to bring you there immediately,” the lead guard spoke again.

Now thankfully able to speak again, Dainty struggled to put out a reply to this. “I’m needed in Canterlot? By the Princesses? Whatever for?” she finally said.

“I don’t know ma’am, we were only told to go and bring you back with all speed. So please ready yourself immediately,” the guard said.

“Ah-um yes, just a moment,” Dainty stammered out before quickly closing the door and fleeing deep into her shop till she reached her living area. Immediately she set about packing a suitcase before heading back out into the hall, leaving a quick note for her secretary when she next stopped by to check on Dainty’s progress with the new line of fashion.

“Ready to go good sirs,” she said as she exited her shop into the hall where the guards were. She was much more collected now, and so she hoped, far more prepared for whatever weirdness awaited her as they exited the building.

What she found, were two further pegasus guards attached to a golden chariot along with a rather sizable crowd. With only a momentary pause to gather her poise, Dainty, quickly stepped out into the open and up onto the chariot while the four free guards moved into position around the chariot. With a short flourish of wings, the chariot, Dainty, and guards were aloft and on their way to Canterlot.

Cloudsdale

….............................................................................

A vivid streak of rainbow colors traced their way across the sky, making its way across the clear skies of Equestria in a zig-zag pattern towards the pegasus city of Cloudsdale. Eventually the colored streak touched down in the cloudy metropolis near the rainbow pools.

When the streak finally came to a halt on the cloudy surface, several things became apparent in short order. First, the streak was in fact a pegasus pony, second the pony in question was as white as the clouds she trotted on barring her mane and tail which were an assemblage of the main six colors of the rainbow. her cutie mark was a gray colored color with a rainbow stretched across it.

As the pony trotted proudly through the building towards her home, she was surprised to find a group of pegasi gathered all around it. With a frown and sigh of frustration, she moved forward, pushing through the ponies all around her home till she finally stood inside the ring of ponies that had gathered there.

Awaiting her were four pegasi of the royal guard who had immediately turned towards the source of the noise that had forced its way through the crowd.

Upon sighting her, one of the guard ponies advanced to meet her and spoke saying, “Miss Rainbow Sky?”

Rainbow would have thought it obvious who she was but nodded anyways to confirm it for the guard.

“Good, you have been summoned to Canterlot by her highness Princess Celestia and her highness Princess Luna for a matter of grave importance. We are to bring you there immediately,” he said.

Rainbow merely cocked an eyebrow and replied with a simple “Right” before turning and heading in towards her house. She was stopped though, as two of the guards standing in front of her home opened their wings and barred her way. Immediately she whirled to look back at the guard who had spoken to her before and began huffed angrily, saying, “What the hay are you doing? Let me into my home!”

The guard shook his head and replied quickly saying, “We are to bring you to Canterlot no matter what, ma’am, please come along quickly, The Princesses require your presence.”

Rainbow Sky held her ground for several seconds before sighing in frustration and nodding quickly.

The guards seem to relax a notch, glad to not have to drag her along. Quickly, they escorted her to a chariot pulled by two more pegasi and motioned her to board. With a sigh she entered and waited for take off, briefly noticing a second chariot off to the side.

Calling to one of the guards, Rainbow asked, “Yo, guard dude, what’s the other chariot for?”

The guard pony, to his credit, didn’t miss a stride as he replied, “That is for another pegasus here that is also being summoned by the princesses.”

"Right, and who's that supposed to be?" Rainbow sniped.

The guard didn't reply immediately as if debating just how much to tell her before opening his mouth to speak. Any answer he might have given though was lost as Rainbow Sky shouted at a new arrival surrounded by a group of four guards.

"Humblefly! You get a weird summon thing from the princesses too?!" she shouted.

To Humblefly's credit, the skittish, butter yellow pegasus did not bolt then and there or hide inside of her voluminous light gray mane, but rather perked up a bit to see the friend who had called to her. With confirmation of the other pegasus's identity, Sky was out of the chariot and off to join her friend who looked just a bit like a faded version of the four bumble bees that adorned her flank to learn just how she had been rounded up to be brought to Canterlot.

When the two were finally ready to go, much to the chagrin of the two guards pulling one of the chariots, they both chose to ride in a single chariot and talk rather than ride apart.

Fillydelphia

….............................................................................

A group of four gold and white pegasus guards muscled their way through a massive crowd of dancing, drinking, and partying ponies on the way towards their goal, one of a pair of ponies behind a massive console near a screen that illuminated the entire room.

When they finally arrived, they forced their way past onto the stage till they were within speaking distance of the two ponies behind the console, one a gray unicorn with ruby eyes, an electric blue mane and a trouble clef cutie mark, the other a bright pink mass of energy with a massive mane that seemed to expand in nearly every direction in dark purple shot with streaks of white that faded in and out. Her cutie mark was a blue and green gift wrapped box that had been opened and was now shooting red streamers out into the air.

When they were close enough the lead guard called out to the ponies saying, "Miss Streamer."

No response.

"Miss Streamer!"

Again no response.

Clearing his throat after sighing in frustration the shouted out in a very, very loud voice.

"MISS STREAMER!"

At his shout the music abruptly came to a halt with the scratch of records stopping as everyone looked towards the guard who had just shouted.

Doing his best to regain his dignity, the guard in question spoke to Streamer again saying, "Miss Streamer, you have been summoned to Canterlot by her highness Princess Celestia and her highness Princess Luna for a matter of grave importance. We are to bring you there immediately."

Streamer looked at first surprised before quickly turning to the gray unicorn beside her who nudged her to the side saying, "Go Streamer, I got this. You got something real big to go do." At the unicorn's prompting Streamer turned back to the guard with a face that was part trepidation, part excitement, and part ecstasy as she shot off towards the ground level exit calling, "Well let's get going silly!"

The pink, purple, and white earth pony made her way to the waiting chariot as if she already knew where it was so by the guards caught up to her, she was urging them to get on their way while music blared from the party club behind them.

Outside Ponyvillie, Sweet Apple Acres

….............................................................................

For the several centuries that had paced, relatively little had changed on Sweet Apple Acres Orchard. All the original building had of course grown old and had eventually had to be demolished and rebuilt periodically, but everything there still felt homey and cozy to visitor. There was no sign that the orchard was a large as it truly was besides the number of ponies that showed up to work unless one could see it from above. The Sweet Apple Acres had nearly increased in size by a factor of three requiring several outlying harvest centers to be built to help make the work easier for the ponies even though everything was still run the same.

One rather tall, well muscled earth pony mare continued the long standing Apple family tradition of apple bucking deep in the orchard around the main house. Her coat was a dark straw color that rippled every time she hit a tree to make it drop its apples into waiting baskets. Her mane was a light brown and tied together at the end into a ponytail as was her tail to keep them from getting snagged as she worked. Her cutie mark was a large, ripe red apple positioned on top of a large jug containing a tea colored liquid.

The morning so far was going well for this farm mare as she worked away bucking apples, but it was disturbed in short order as a shrill tone from a little filly’s cry came tearing down a line of trees towards her. She looked up just in time to be bowled over by a pale yellow colored filly with grass green hair and no cutie mark.

“Big sis’ Cider,” the little filly wailed.

“What is it, Applesauce? Geez, ya’ can’t just slam me over like that and not say why now can ya’?” The older mare replied, confusion in her pale red eyes as she scooped up the crying filly and righted the both of them back onto the ground.

“Applecider, there’s these guard ponies lookin’ for ya’,” Applesauce whined, bringing her breathing under control now that her older sister had given her a bit of talking to.

“Wha’da mean looking for me’ Applesauce? Be specific please, especially if this is important,”

“Six of them landed by the house with this chariot thing and and began asking around for ya’ sis. I got scared that they were gonna take you away so I came to find you,”

Applecider brought a hoof to her face and then gently patted Applesauce on the head saying, “Don’ worry sis’ it’ll be fine I haven’t done anything bad, so let’s go see what they want with me.”

Reluctantly, a nearly crying Applesauce accompanied Cider back to the main house, where Cider was surprised to find things exactly as her little sister had described them. Six white pegasus ponies in gold armor, two of them attached to a chariot, stood at attention near the main house. As soon as they sited her, the nearest one approached and spoke.

“Miss Applecider?”

Her response was a stiff nod, she didn’t quite appreciate that they had arrived and interrupted her work day, much less sent her sister off frightened for her life, but for the moment she was going to hear them out.

“Miss Applecider,” the guard began, “you have been summoned to Canterlot by her highness Princess Celestia and her highness Princess Luna for a matter of grave importance. We are to bring you there immediately."

Applecider immediately cocked an eyebrow at this and replied with a very formal, “Say what?”

“I said your presence is needed in Canterlot by the Princesses, so please come along quickly.”

“Just a sec,”

Cider was quick to bolt into the main house to see about getting things in order to leave for who knows how long. When she returned some fifteen minutes later, she carried a pair of saddlebags over her back as she said, “I’m ready, jus’ let me say bye to my sister.”

Without even waiting for the guard’s permission Applecider was busy giving Applesauce a series of instructions on what she would need to do around the orchard while she was gone. The filly seemed pleased at the responsibility, but a bit disappointed that her big sister was leaving. In short order though, Cider had said goodbye and was in the chariot waving goodbye to her siblings, her saddlebags stored away in the chariot.

Ponyvillie Proper

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The town of Ponyvillie had grown a fair bit over the intervening centuries since the time of Night Mare Moon and Discord, but not a great deal. The houses were still wood and painted in pastel colors, mostly with thatched roofs. At the center of the quiet town still stood the library tree, only now larger than it had been. The building had grown wider and taller to the point where it stood close to twice its original height and diameter in all aspects, and when one went inside, it became clear that the changes hadn't gone unnoticed.

The interior hadn't increased in size as much as the outside, but it was still much larger, new bookcases stretching along the walls to hold an ever increasing assortment of books that were available for the populace. The stairs that originally lead up to the the bed room and study still went there, but instead of stopping they continued on up further into the tree till they reached a trap door in the ceiling. Beyond that point was a small observatory added some time in the past when the tree had grown enough to accommodate it.

On the ground floor though was the town's librarian, busy ordering dozens of books around to their proper places with her magic. She kept constant track of all of them as they slotted neatly into the correct position on the shelves according to genre, then author, and finally title.

The town's current librarian was a bit of an odd duck, but so had most of their librarians been for a while. A unicorn mare, her coat was black as pitch while her mane at tail were another case all together. Both started a dark lavender at the roots before slowly fading out to a light pink and finally yellow at the end. Her cutie mark was also unusual, a black moon with small silver stars on one upper corner over a gold sun. Add to this her this her magenta eyes and extremely powerful magic with a tendency to go haywire and you had a walking, talking curiosity. A curiosity named Midnight Dawn.

As more books came from stacks around the room to be sorted as they were picked up in Midnight's magic, one could see just how much concentration the unicorn was using to perform this activity.

Outside the library in the town square, a quartet of white pegasus guards with gold armor touched down followed by two more with a golden chariot. Immediately, the free guards set a course for the library nearby. The first guard to reach the entrance knocked twice on the door and foolishly looked in through the window as all hay broke loose inside.

Midnight had picked up the last four stacks of books in her magic for sorting putting a total of nearly sixty of the heavy tomes swirling about around her for sorting. That stopped the instant someone knocked on the door.

As soon as the sound from the knock reached Midnight's ears, her concentration broke and her magic poured out, sending the books she was holding flying ever which way. The vast majority were hitting walls, but a few shot out through windows and one rather large tome made its way out the front door's window.

She didn't see what it hit, but she heard the dull crumpling sound of metal, the 'oof' of a pony, and then the solid thud of some pony hitting the ground. Swallowing her immediate fear, she bolted for the door to see what had happened.

The instant loud thuds began coming from inside, the guards had started to take a step back, but before any of them could, a large black book came crashing out the front window, smashing into the first guard's head hard enough to dent the armor he wore before making him flip completely over backwards. An instant later the door sprang open to reveal a very concerned and flustered black unicorn mare looking at the guards who had bolted forward to their downed comrade.

"Ah no. Ah hay..." Midnight muttered slightly when she saw just who it was that was outside her door, freezing up just a bit.

The closest conscious guard immediately moved forward to speak while the two other free ones came to tend to their comrade.

"Miss Dawn, you have been summoned to Canterlot by her highness Princess Celestia and her highness Princess Luna for a matter of grave importance. We are to bring you there immediately." he said calmly, though not without eying his knocked out soldier.

"I understand, I'll come," Midnight replied quickly before also looking at the downed pegasus.

"He'll be alright won't he?" she asked.

"He should. He's merely dealing with the consequences of forgetting that we aren't supposed to disturb your concentration, ma'am,"

Midnight nodded in reply before quickly moving back inside and fetching a set of saddle bags for travel. Any request from the princesses was important. Especially when it took six guards to deliver it. So this was something Midnight Dawn, Celestia's protégée immediately understood and complied with.

She did wonder just how quickly the guard forgot things sometimes, as it had only been a year since she had left Canterlot.

Still in short order, she was outside and in the waiting chariot along withe guard she had hit, who now sported a white bandage in place of his helmet as he lay beside her in the golden chariot.

With a sigh, Midnight signaled she was ready and they took off towards Canterlot.

Chapter 03

Forging Hope

By Marching Thunder

Chapter 3

Canterlot

….............................................................................

The trip to Canterlot took a little over three hours for Midnight Dawn's chariot, and by the time she had arrived the guard she had accidentally knocked out had regained consciousness. Rather then flying though, he thankfully remained in the chariot and provided a source of conversation, allowing Midnight to catch up on what she had missed in the capital over the last year since she had left Celestia's tutelage to travel before settling in Ponyvillie.

When they did touch down finally Midnight did not fail to notice nor inquire as to another five chariots she spotted nearby.

"Those are for the others who have received summons from the princesses, now please hurry." Was the reply she got from the guards, leaving her to do little more than shrug and follow along into the castle.

She was lead through familiar halls that brought back a sense of nostalgia as she thought about her memories of living in the castle during her apprenticeship to Princess Celestia. The first year or so of that time had been spent on helping her manage to get a hold of her own power to the point where she could manage basic telekinesis and other magic without wide spread damage to the area being caused on accident. As they passed one particular set of windows, she felt a sense of chagrin as she noticed a rather large tree with windows sprouting from the white stone that made up the majority of the castle. She certainly remembered that day, Celestia had been there to watch her, but rather than reverse what she had done, she had refined the tree into a proper replacement for the tower it had consumed, much like the tree Midnight lived in at Ponyvillie.

Her retrospection was brought to a halt as her guards stopped and opened a set of doors that she recognized lead into a foyer that was adjacent to the throne room. When they didn't move to accompany her, Midnight went it alone and entered, only to her voices as she rounded a corner. One was vaguely familiar to her, but the rest she had never heard before as the doors closed shut behind her.

"Oye! I think somepony else just got here, maybe we can finally get on with this!" one called as she approached the sources.

"Silly, we're already going at this!"

"What do you mean, Streamer?"

There was no response from the voice called Streamer, so Midnight chose to round the final corner and see who awaited her.

What greeted her was a group of ponies made up of two pegasi, two earth ponies, and a single unicorn of various colors, though the pegasus with the rainbow mane seemed the most unusual of the lost.

"Ah hello, I'm Midnight Dawn," she greeted the group, mentally cursing herself as she once against felt like a little, timid filly back in magic kindergarten.

"Are you the one we been waitin' for?" asked one of the earth ponies, her coat a dark yellow and her mane and tail a light brown.

"I would guess so, but I didn't know you had been waiting, so I apologize for that. Still may I ask who you all are?" Midnight responded kindly, trying not to be railroaded by the earth pony so quickly. Her own anxieties were more than capable of running her mind off the tracks, she didn't need other ponies pushing her around verbally.

The earth pony seemed taken aback for a second as she reconsidered herself for a moment before replying. "Sorry about that, Miss Midnight. We've been cooped up in here for a while and I guess I kinda' forgot my' manners."

Before Midnight could accept the apology, the earth pony continued saying, "Anyways, my name's Applecider, the white pegasus here is Rainbow Sky, the yellow an' gray one is Humblefly, the pink one here is Streamer, and the unicorn is Dainty." each of the ponies made some form of acknowledgement as they were introduced and Midnight replied in kind, though she knew she had heard Rainbow Sky's name somewhere before.

After a few moments of awkward silence Midnight decided to start a new conversation by asking, "So all of you received summons from the princesses?"

There were a few nods before the one introduced as Dainty spoke saying, "Oh certainly, they came straight into my building and right to my door to tell me I needed to come along as 'my presence' was needed for something. They didn't even let me finish working before taking me out and bringing me along for that obnoxiously boring flight to here. Though now that I am in the capital, I must say it is quite nice." her story brought a few chuckles from the group as the pink pony, Streamer spoke up next.

"Oh they came straight into the party I was helping to host and told me I needed to come along. Boy none of the guests were happy that part of the entertainment was leaving, but what exactly do you do, when a bunch of big'ol guard ponies show up saying they need you to come along?"

"You fight them!" Rainbow sky replied enthusiastically, raising more than a few eyebrows amongst the group.

"Did you?" Humblefly asked.

"Well no... but-"

"Then you don't fight them," Humblefly cut in.

the two continued to debate the point as the others began to speak about how they had been picked up to come to Canterlot.

Princess Luna watched from beside Princess Celestia as the image before them in the conjured mirror showed the six ponies introducing themselves and talking amongst each other.

"Do you think this is really the best solution for letting them get introduced to each other, sister?" Luna asked calmly.

"Yes, we need them to begin to know each other before we can possibly begin this..." Celestia replied, sadness tinging her voice as her composure wavered just a fraction.

"Even though you know they'll be unhappy with us?"

"That is a something we will have to deal with, and if they need to be unhappy with us in order to build friendship among each other, than it is necessary."

Luna didn't reply, but Celestia could feel her sister's displeasure simmer a bit at having to be a target of somepony's anger, no matter how trivial it was.

After close to half an hour of waiting, the doors to the throne room opened, causing the entirety of the group to immediately turn and begin moving into the grand chamber. Midnight Dawn lead the group, with everyone else close behind her, though Rainbow Sky chose to slowly fly along behind her.

As they approached, Midnight could have sworn she caught a slight smile from Celestia, but didn't acknowledge the possibility as she stopped roughly thirty feet from the twin thrones and bowed, the rest of the group following suit in short order.

Before anypony of the group could acknowledge the princesses, Celestia took the initiative and spoke first, cutting off any chance the rest of the ponies had to speak.

"Thank you for coming, my little ponies. I deeply apologize for the long wait you had to endure before we were able to speak to you. I understand you that some of you may be unhappy with us, and that is just fine. So if there are no complaints or questions, We would like to tell you all why you all were summoned here."

At first there were no questions, but Applecider spoke up after a second to say, "Ah' beg your pardon, your majesty, but if you're gonna' summon six ponies from all corners of Equestria, shouldn't you be ready for them as soon as they arrive?"

Celestia smiled lightly at Applecider as she next spoke saying, "We were ready, Applecider, but a matter concerning why we summoned all of you arouse and demanded out immediate attention."

"Will we get to know what this item was?"

"In due time, Applecider, in due time. Now is there anything else?"

When there were no further questions, Celestia began to speak again, this time far more regal in her bearing. "I trust all of you know of the stories of the Elements of Harmony and the Defeat of Discord?"

Nods came from all the members of the group, some quicker then others.

"Very well then, The original bearers of the Elements of Harmony after myself and Luna were a group of ponies very dear to us and Equestria. Two unicorns; Twilight Sparkle and Rarity, two earth ponies; Pinkie Pie and Applejack, and two pegasi; Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash."

There was a pause, all of them had heard this information before, some of them even knew a bit about the significance of the names in relation to themselves, but Celestia continued on.

"The six of you have been summoned here because we need you to take upon yourselves the mantles those six ponies once carried as the Elements of Harmony. War is coming and Equestria will need you as heroes to defend herself from the forces that would destroy it."

Celestia stopped to let what she had said sink in as the six ponies worriedly began to look between each other. War? Such a thing was unheard of in over 1500 years of history! The worst they had seen were the rise of Nightmare Moon and Discord, both of which had been ended in less than a day.

"Something is gathering in the darkest corners of the world, my ponies, and neither just Luna and I will be enough to stop it, that is why we have had to call upon you. In addition to this, even as we speak I might add, the royal guards are increasing their training and stepping up their recruitment in an attempt to prepare for what is coming it is such a threat."

Celestia's speech seem to falter for a moment as she took a breath before saying, "All the signs that were predicted so long ago are falling into place, and we have little choice but to do everything we can to stop the coming tide."

The gathered ponies continued to speak to each other for several moments as worry creased their brows and showed in their tones. Midnight though, had had enough of the doubting, she was the Princess's pupil for a reason, and to the Princess who had given her everything, she was willing to return the favor. Stepping forward and away from the bickering group she spoke up saying, "I'll fight, your highness. I'll do whatever you need me to."

Princess Celestia seemed immediately relieved that Midnight had stepped up, but the ponies behind her did not, and this was vocally emphasized by a sudden protest from Rainbow Sky.

"What are doing, Midnight?! You're offering to go fight, and maybe even die! Are you stupid?!"

"Hardly, Rainbow Sky. I just realize how important this is. Don't you think that if the Princesses had another choice other than sending ponies off to fight and die they would immediately take that opportunity?" she shot back, the white pegasus immediately falling quiet.

"Well the princesses do seem to think it is quite important that they have our help so I think I could at least see what I can do..." Dainty spoke up before taking a few steps forward to join Midnight Dawn.

"This outta be exciting at least," was Streamer's remark as she stepped forward.

"Ah hay' I guess I just can't let you all go out there and risk your lives with out me to save ya' can I?" Applecider remarked as she came forward.

Humblefly didn't make any immediate comment as she flitted forward on her wings to join the group.

"Humblefly come on! You hate fighting more than anypony else, why are you doing this?!" Rainbow sky demanded.

"B-because it's the right thing to do..." the butter and ash colored pegasus replied.

That remark seemed to draw a silence from Rainbow who gave a huff of defeat and looked away for several seconds before looking at the ground and dead-panning.

"Fine."

At that the whole group was together and ready, and to signal it, Midnight spoke up saying, "We're ready, Princess celestia, Princess Luna, what do you need?"

They were greet by a pair of smiles from the two princesses who then began to speak.

Chapter 04

Forging Hope

By Marching Thunder

Chapter 4

Canterlot

….............................................................................

What the princesses wanted first off it turned out, was for everyone in the group to head to the dining hall to eat before turning in for the evening in a massive guest room they would all be sharing during their time at the castle. The next day though, things were to begin in proper, the group was to do all sorts of team building activities and get to know each other as well as they could during the next week.

Once the group had left the throne room, it was the princesses's turn to speak to each other.

"Luna do you think they'll be able to do what's needed of them?" Celestia questioned, her voice soft as silk but tinged with worry.

"Possibly, Midnight Dawn seems capable as a leader much like Twilight Sparkle was. So long as she remains there I doubt the others will waver from the path that they are given." Luna replied.

"We're asking more from them than just risking their lives Luna, we're going to be asking them to kill others. That is something precious few ponies are capable of doing."

"What would you do instead then, sister?"

Silence was her reply.

"Very well, away from this topic. When do you think you will give Twilight's legacy to Midnight?"

"Not for a while yet, sister."

"But what if she requires time to learn to use whatever it does! We don't even know what that thing Twilight created will do!"

"Then so be it. Before anything can change her, Midnight will have to have solid friendships established with the other ponies so that they can accept whatever changes occur and not lose the blessings of the Elements, Luna."

Luna paused for several seconds to consider the wisdom of her sister's logic before nodding. If the pony to receive the item hadn't been a wielder of an Element of Harmony they likely would have given the unicorn the item immediately, rather than waiting but at this point they couldn't risk upsetting the fragile bonds forming between the Elements.

At that point Celestia spoke again, but not to Luna.

"Doctor, I know you're there, so please come out."

In response a brown stallion with an hour glass cutie mark and a dark brown mane stepped out from behind a pillar and into the main section of the hall.

"I never could quite hide from you Celestia, Twilight did warn me against it, but I never did take her warnings too seriously for the most part," the stallion said with a chuckle.

Celestia looked at the stallion with a mixture of happiness and sadness as she remembered ponies long since past before she spoke to Whooves saying. "So unless I am mistaken, that was your first opportunity to see your descendant, correct? So what do you think?"

Whooves smiled sadly as he replied, "She reminds me a great deal of Twilight, perhaps too much for me to ever really be comfortable around her, but that's going to be an issue for all of us isn't it?"

The room filled with silence for several moments before perhaps the least outwardly sentimental of the group, Luna, nodded in agreement, followed in short order by Celestia.

"Now that that's out of the way," Whooves spoke, returning to his normal, cheery tone, "What do you need me to go and do?"

As the six ponies made their way through the halls after a rather large dinner, Dainty popped a rather obvious question that had been bothering Midnight for a while as the group made their way about with a pair of guards to guide them.

"So what all does everypony here do for a living? I for one work in Manehattan as a fashion designer, but what about the rest of you?"

Streamer was the first to reply, calling out in a rather loud, happy voice, "I'm a DJ! Oh! And I host parties!" Before ending her introduction with a cheer.

"I buck and sell apples on mah' family's orchard out near Ponyvillie," was Cider's response.

When the ponies looked to Humblefly for an answer, the pegasus quailed before being verbally rescued by Rainbow Sky who supplied an answer as she threw a foreleg over her compatriot's shoulder.

"Humblefly and I are weather pegasi, but Humble also works to help manage wildlife a lot of the time too. So what about you Mid's?"

Midnight gritted her teeth slightly at the nickname Rainbow had given her, but chose to grin and bear it as she gave out her answer.

"Well right right now I'm the Ponyvillie town librarian, but I've only been doing that for a few months. Before that..." She hesitated briefly. The fact she was Celestia's pupil would come out eventually so she might as well get it out now right?

"Before that I was actually, um, Princess Celestia's personal student." she finished. Midnight cringed internally in preparation for the expected backlash from the ponies around her. Most times this knowledge got out, the reactions were immediate jealousy or other nasty emotions, and that's what Midnight was ready for.

Rainbow was the first to respond, a low whistle coming forth before she made her declaration.

"Damn, that's really awesome Mid's,"

"What sort of magic did you learn from the Princess, Midnight?" Dainty chimed in next.

The others were quick to follow with questions of curiosity about what it was like, or all other sorts of things about her time in apprenticeship.

To her credit, Midnight did her best to answer all the questions as best as she could, starting with Dainty's.

"Well I learned a lot of the same basic magic that they teach in the normal unicorn classes, but at the start what Celestia really focused on teaching me was control. If I'm not careful enough, my magic can be really dangerous. For example, during my entrance exam... I kind of turned one of the towers here into a tree..."

Midnight Dawn continued her explanations for a while, but not without trading off some questions with the everypony else. Even after they arrived at their room and were set up to sleep, the group kept talking. Over all, she had to say so far the group was getting along quite well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Flashback-

"Whooves. Whooves! Whooves!!" Twilight called from where she had collapsed on the floor.

Instantly the brown earth stallion came running to her, helping the aged Twilight back to her hooves as he spoke to her softly.

"I'm sorry dear, I was finishing the last of the adjustments I would need to head forward to watch over the bearers,"

Twilight nodded tiredly in silent reply before saying, "It's alright, I just... Worried a little at being alone all of a sudden. With what I saw during he scrying I fear loneliness the most now."

Whooves nodded, planting a gentle kiss on his wife's forehead before continuing to speak to her.

"Has anything changed yet? Or is that force still obstructing your magic?"

"It's still there unfortunately," she replied, shaking her head as Doctor Whooves helped her into their bed to rest.

"I understand, Twilight, and I'll do whatever I can to help, but you need to quit attempting to shoulder this yourself and remember that there are others around who will help you."

"I know Whooves, old habits just die hard I guess," Twilight responded as she drifted off to sleep.

With Twilight asleep and resting, Doctor Whooves looked towards the box on her desk and wondered to himself if the toll its contents had taken on her was worth what it was supposed to do.

-End Flashback

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bright gold light from Celestia's sun streaming in through a large window at the East end of the room proved to be the determining factor on when the ponies inside the guest room finally woke up. A few of them had rolled over onto to different sides to avoid the too bright sun, but eventually even that was futile as the six ponies began to wake for their day's activities. The first up was Rainbow Sky who proceeded to then flit about the room yawning as she woke the rest by lazily shoving them about in their beds with her hooves.

"Come on everypony, time to get up, Celestia said we'd have stuff to do today, remember?" Sky called out wearily as she moved towards the attached bathroom to clean herself up for the day.

Her call hadn't gone without notice though, most of the ponies in the room had responded with moans of unhappiness, but all were now at least shuffling to get off their beds and head to the bathroom to wash.

All except Streamer who was already up and bouncing, far too happy at this point in time by anyone's measure for how late they all had stayed up talking that night.

Eventually though, all of the six were well awake and cleaned up as they headed back into the dining hall for breakfast, chatting as they went and even after they were seated and served for the day's first meal; blue berry waffles, daisy muffins, orange juice, and several other treats.

"So when do ya'll think we'll get to work on that stuff the princesses have prepared for us?" Cider asked, bringing up the topic of why they were there for the first time.

Everypony was quiet for a few seconds as all of them still were having a little trouble accepting what it was they had volunteered for, but eventually it was Dainty who broke the silence by saying, "Well they did ask us to head to the west courtyard after we were finished with breakfast, so I suppose this morning most likely, but one can never be too sure."

The group was silent for several seconds before Midnight spoke up, having grown uncomfortable with the silence stretching between them. They had something to do, so they might as well get on with it, just sitting her dilly-dallying about it would get them now where and if it was as serious as Celestia said it was, and she did not doubt it was, than time was of the essence.

"Alright, if everypony is finished then let's go. We can't be putting this off or it'll just bother us more than it is now," she said.

There were murmurs of agreement as chairs were pushed back and everypony stepped away from the table before heading to follow Midnight Dawn as she set a reasonable pace out of the room and towards the West Courtyard.

The West Courtyard was just that, a courtyard, a large open expanse of space, some of it set up around a fountain, another section in a garden, and one rather large section that took up roughly half the space was a section of crushed white gravel that seemed to be a sort of parade ground.

Waiting at this section was Princess Luna along with two gold armored, gray unicorns along with one white unicorn in the same armor.

As the group of six ponies approached, they were given a gentle smile by Princess Luna, along with a nod from the white unicorn guard before they came to a rest a good eight to ten feet from them, giving Luna a courteous bow.

"Ah that will not be necessary, my little ponies," Luna replied before continuing, "You will be taking up a roll that will make all of you just as important as my sister and I if not more so, so please, do not worry over such trivialities."

After a few hesitant nods from the gathered ponies Luna continued speaking.

"Now for continued introductions. This is Captain Silvermane of the Royalguard, he will oversee the bulk of your training, as matters of state have unfortunately made it so that neither Celestia or I will be able to over see your training all the time. He will do so in our stead with his lieutenants Shield Breaker and Shadow Cutter." Each of the ponies nodded in turn as they were introduced to the group so that they would know who was who, though for the two lieutenants, it was still nearly impossible to tell them apart.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have some matters I must attend to before assisting my sister," Luna said calmly, giving all the ponies gather a mild bow before taking walking out of the area, a pair of guards falling into step behind her as she left.

Once the Princess was gone, Captain Silvermane turned to the group to speak, his voice surprisingly gentle for a a pony of his stature and position.

"Alright, now that we all have been introduced, I'll tell you what you'll be doing today. The princesses told me that this is the first time that all of you have ever met, so I had planned some team building exercises till lunch. How does that sound?"

"That sounds pretty good actually," Rainbow replied, her tone carrying the shock she felt at just how kind the captain had been just then.

Agreement came from the rest before the captain nodded and said, "Very well then, let's get to it."

Four very long and tiring hours later, Midnight Dawn, Rainbow Sky, Applecider, Humblefly, Dainty, and Streamer and trudged their way into the dining hall for lunch, silently cursing Captain Silvermane for his so called 'exercises'. What they had expected to be like the meet-and-greet team building things they had all done in school turned out to be nothing like what they expected, instead shortly after getting their agreement, a dozen guards had come out and begun setting up an obstacle course the likes of which they had never seen.

First they had had to run the course as a group, working together to get past all the obstacles, using everypony's skills from magic to flight to strength, but it had been extremely difficult to get the needed cooperation the first time through and so it had taken them nearly half an hour to make the run.

the next one went better, closer to fifteen minutes, but then Silvermane had made things worse. he and his two lieutenants had begun lobbing objects from the sidelines to distract or trip them and use their magic to make them mess up so that another pony would have to step in and help. That run took nearly forty-five minutes, but the one after that had been faster, again close to half an hour.

There had been breaks in between each run that brought them to the top of the hour and allowed them to plan and rest before attempting to go again, so by the time lunch came around, everyone was incredibly worn out, but also beginning to understand the proper way to work together if they wanted to get through the obstacle course within the ten minute time that Silvermane had set as par for the course.

Little did they know that the Captain had much worse prepared for them, and if they wanted to get through it, they were going to have both get better, and cooperate more.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So there's the end of chapter four (five if you count the prologue) and I hope that everyone who has been reading this is enjoying it. I'm going to work to get a chapter out every couple days or so, but I might not be able to promise anything especially in about two weeks when college picks back up again. Otherwise though, I'll do my best to stay regular.

Other than that though, if you spot any errors, feel free to inform me, whether by PM or by comment, I don't care which, I just I appreciate being told so that I can fix it.

Many thanks,

Marching Thunder