The Equestrian Fortress Tournament
My Little Pony: The Fortress Tournament
OPENING CEREMONIES
It was a bright summer day in the land of Equestria’s capital city, Canterlot.
The grins of its citizens, some from all across the Equine landscape were even brighter as practically every sentient being form Ponyville to Manehattan to the Griffon tribes eagerly galloped, teleported, and flew into the open front gates of Canterlot castle towards the courtyard outside Princess Celestia’s room.
Inside the palace, an alicorn, whiter than the purest snow stood on a white balcony adorned with purple ribbons next to her bedroom watching with a warm smile as her loyal subjects gathered below.
The alicorn turned her head after hearing a door close and looked to see a fellow alicorn, this one dark blue, sleepy, and levitating a cup of coffee from inside the bedroom.
“I hope thou realizes dearest sister, that thou shalt NEVER see us up this early again”
“Yes, I suppose four in the afternoon is much too early for you to be up Luna, but the fact you are means you’re just as excited as I am.”
“Nothing gets by thou Celestia.”
“Not often, no.”
“The door to the Solar Princess’ room closed once more as two more figures entered the room. A pink alicorn similar to Celestia and Luna entered looking nervous followed by tall, thin creature reminiscent of a serpent and many other animals, grinning mischievously.
“Oh good, you have arrived. We may finally ready to begin. I expect you to be on your best behavior.” Celestia said to the mismatched creature, who put on an innocent (or innocent by his standards) smile.
Celestia turned toward the balcony and the crowd slowly quieted down as she began to speak.
“Good afternoon, my little ponies. I am glad to see each and every one of you. You may have noticed many advertisements and sign in sheets around the land pertaining to what is happening today.”
“Today we have decided to enact a competition that has not been held in over 1,200 years. It is a contest of skill, strategy, and most importantly, teamwork. This competition is known as...”
Several feet above Celestia a couple of pegasi guards unraveled a large banner, which in black letters read…
“THE SECOND EQUESTRIAN FORTRESS TOURNAMENT!” Boomed Celestia in the royal Canterlot voice
There was a mix of cheers from the few ponies who have heard of the tournament from books and confused/curious faces from the rest, whom have never heard of such a contest.
“The competition will be divided into three legs. Each leg will have a different set of rules and goals to keep the teams on their hooves. The tournament will contain four teams, each with nine contenders.
Each team member will assume one of nine roles, or for a more common term, classes. We will introduce the name of the first leg as well as our appointed announcer. In the spirit of fairness, the only contenders for each team that will be known until the first match are the four captains.
Once the captains have been introduced, the will each transport both themselves and the eight other members of their teams to their team barracks located in their bases in the tournament’s chosen location, the Apploosan Desert. The teams that wins will receive not only receive a generous cash prize, but a giant trophy taller than me as well as a statue of winners and even their names in the history books. Which brings us to our first team Captain, who would seem quite familiar to those who attended last April’s wedding. Please come out captain of the pink Heart team, Princess Cadence!”
On that cue, the pink alicorn trotted onto the balcony next to Celestia. She had a multicolored mane of creams, purples, and pinks. Her cutie mark was a turquoise crystal heart surrounded by small gold lines. “Hello my little ponies! I am ecstatic to take part in this tournament. You see I was only just born when the first tournament went on, so I never received the honor of competing and the closest thing to that were stories aunt Celestia told me and what little I could find in books. I am incredibly grateful, auntie for allowing me the position of captain for one of the teams, and I shall not let anypony down! Out of the ponies that have signed up, I have chosen those whom I deem to be an incredible lineup. They may not be intimidating, but I have absolutely no doubt the ponies assisting me in this contest have an incredible amount of heart and love for others. Without further ado, I will see the most of you in a week when Leg one begins, and to my chosen team, see you in just a second.”
With those parting words, Princess Cadence vanished from the balcony in a bright pink light, shortly followed by eight small pink flashes from the crowd.
“Princess Cadence, everypony! Now, before I introduce the second captain, I must ask that everypony try to remain calm. The only reason I’m doing this is because this captain was a contender last time along with the other two, and I suppose everything deserves a second chance. I present the captain of the Black Chaos Team…..(sigh), Discord."
There was eruption mix boos, screams, insults, and even the odd cheer as a cloud of cotton candy slowly descended from the sky carrying the spirit of chaos and disharmony on it humming a familiar tune; before resting slightly above Celestia and raining chocolate milk on her.
“Stay calm, Celly, you’re the Princess. Remember you and Luna weakened his powers when you released him. Perhaps not enough.” Thought Celestia to herself alongside various vengeful thoughts. The Draconequis let out a joyful laugh after soaking Equestria’s ruler in another liberal amount of chocolate milk and began to speak into a microphone made out of a rubber chicken.
“Hellooooooooo Equestria! Oh, it’s so good to see you all again! It’s so sweet of Celestia to give me a chance to crush you all in this tournament… again! Yes that’s right I was one of the captains in the first tournament AND WON FAIR AND SQUARE! That’s right, ME, the Spirit of chaos and disharmony won without even getting the opportunity to cheat, MWAHAHAHAHAHA! SO yeah thanks for giving me a shot at kicking your sorry flank this game again Celestia, even if my powers were reduced.”
Celestia decided to just glare at the draconequis to avoid dignifying his taunts with a rebuttal and went back to imagining turning him to stone again and then buying a sledgehammer from the nearest hardware store.
“Aaaaaanywhoof, I chose eight teammates that represent what I look for; chaos. My team just like last time will be full of members that saw past the whole charade of the “magic of friendship” and found where one’s true prosperity lies. I look forward to kicking all your flanks, and ruling you all, tootles!”
With a snap of his fingers, Discord vanished and like with Cadence, eight more joined him.
“Well, after that… unusual introduction, allow me to introduce both the third and fourth team captains.” Silence rolled through the crowd in anticipation of the final two team captains for what seemed like an eternity.
Slowly none other than Princess Luna walked onto the balcony next to her sister wearing an extremely proud grin as a vast majority of the crowd began to cheer almost as hard as a certain Earth Pony could party.
“THAT IS-we mean,-that is correct my little ponies, the final two captains of the remaining two teams will be none other than my dear Sister and we-I!” explained Princess Luna
“Thank you Luna. Yes, my sister and I were the other two contenders last tournament. Neither of us claimed victory last time unfortunately. For my Sun team and Luna’s Moon team we have each chosen those who represent qualities that are crucial in both this contest and in life. This basically concludes the opening ceremonies. To the competitors, I look forward to competing with or against all of you. To the rest I invite all of you to watch the competition in the Apploosan Desert next week. Until then my little ponies…”
With a two bright flashes of white and blue light, both regal alicorns along with sixteen members of the audience disappeared to their respective bases.
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Celestia opened her eyes to reveal a small white room adorned with various benches, lockers, and shelves.
On the opposite side was a large gray shudder leading to the outside and in the middle, seven ponies and one baby dragon trying to regain composure after the sudden teleport.
With a light chuckle, Celestia began to address them.
“Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Spike, and miss Ditzy Doo. I would like to welcome all of you to the Sun Team.”
TO BE CONTINUED
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Author's notes: I hoped ou liked this new idea for a story I have, please leave reactions and questions in the comments. While the other teams will be of coursed featured in this story, I still plan to have it focus on Celestia's Sun Team.
Next time we meet the team!