//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 Tale of Two Stories // Story: Gaia // by Puking Coyote //------------------------------// Chapter 5 Tale of Two Stories Celestia sat in her throne room going over some important documents, but although she was busy her mind was elsewhere. “How could Twilight be defeated so easily?” she asked herself. Trixies trick was indeed ingenious, a sleeping spell from underground. However the magic and concentration needed for that type of spell was enormous and Trixie just a few months ago according to her student had neither of those. Her mind searched for memories of lost libraries or scrolls of magic in Equestria trying to find some answer but the fact was nopony except maybe Starswirl could have done such a thing. She knew from her research that Trixie was a descendent of his but all of the scrolls and books Starswirl wrote were confiscated, so the knowledge could not have been passed down by a family heirloom. She looked at Twilight who was busy working beside her also seeming troubled by her defeat. No, not by her defeat but by her humiliation. All the ponies in Equestria thought that she simply fainted being frightened by the duel even though she insisted that Trixie beat her with a sleeping spell. Neither outcome was good, one showed her to faint at the first sign of trouble and the other showed that an average unicorn defeated an alicorn. Celestia snorted at both ideas. “Augghhh, it’s just so…so… infuriating!” Twilight suddenly exploded. “I did not faint! It was a spell.” Celestia put her hoof on Twilights shoulder “It’s alright Twilight, Luna will soon bring Trixie in so we can get some answers.” This seemed to help Twilight but only very little. As if by cue Luna’s voice could be heard outside. Celestia immediately straightened up to welcome her guest, Trixie. Luna burst through the door clearly disturbed but there was no Trixie with her. “Sister there thou art, we have a problem.” “What is it Luna, could you not find Trixie?” she asked seeing that Luna was alone. “Oh, we found her alright, her and her three friends” Luna replied coming swiftly towards them. Celestia stood up “Surely they did not slip past you?” “Course not! We captured them.” Celestia relaxed and sat back down “Good, bring her forward.” “Nay dear sister, they were taken by another” Luna stated apologetically. “You are one of the best warriors in all Equestria Luna, who could have done such a thing? If it was Discord I am going…” “Nay sister, Discord had nothing to do with it” Luna replied “It was Gaia.” “WHAT!!!” Celestia screamed almost falling off her throne. Her guards came rushing in at the sudden outburst but on the sudden demand from Celestia for them to get out they scrambled away from the chambers faster than any pony should have been able to run. “You’re telling me that Gaia is here?!” “Yes sister, we fought him, there is no doubt.” Celestia leaned back and rubbed her temple “After all these years he is back, you are sure?” Luna nodded her head. “Who am I?” Gaia asked the girls who were now in front of him. “Since Celestia already knows by now that I am here it wouldn’t hurt to tell you four” he then took off his cloak. Gaia’s coat as the girls had guessed from what they saw when his face was uncovered by Luna was indeed green a bright deep green a wonderful green like the grass of a thick prairie. The girls however, were not expecting Gaia’s whole body to be covered in red moving plasma lava stripes much like a zebras but smaller and less numerous. On his rump was the image of the globe. They looked upon him in awe as he stretched out his wings, yes wings, for he was indeed an alicorn. “You’re an alicorn?” Trixie asked. “That I am” Gaia replied. “One of the big three to be exact.” “One of the three?” “Yes, all alicorns are connected to certain energies and that’s where they draw their power. As long as even a fragment of that energy is still in existence, so will the alicorn exist. Out of all of the energies that there are, there are three that we know of which are the most powerful, these are the Sun, Earth, and Moon and amongst these three the Sun is the most powerful but not by much.” “Excuse me Princess but who is Gaia?” Twilight asked once her mentor settled down. “Gaia, he is the most fearsome foe I ever faced. He is a creature who wants nothing more than to rule Equestria the way he sees fit and will stop at nothing to accomplish this” Celestia replied. Gaia looked out the window “Celestia and I were once rivals; like I said she didn’t think that a land could be ruled by many alicorns and wanted a monarchy of a few. However I thought that it could and favored a democracy in Equestria. We had many battles between each other in which I do regret many ponies were hurt.” “But you defeated him didn’t you?” Twilight asked Celestia. “No, I faced Gaia many times but never once was I able to defeat him.” “Then who did?” “That would be us of course” Luna replied quite proud of herself. “Our outstanding abilities finally took the tyrant down.” “She sideswiped me” Gaia told the girls recalling the story. “During the last battle Celestia’s little sister Luna seeing that her big sister was going to lose became an alicorn and just as Celestia’s defeat was within my hoofs she clocked me from behind.” Gaia laughed at this “I should have known that she would have figured out the mysteries of the alicorn. She was always a cleaver girl. Luckily I was able to create a dirt clone of myself and hide before they swooped upon me. Otherwise I would be imprisoned in the sun instead of it. After that I decided facing the two of them would bring too much destruction on the world and possibly my own downfall so I took on a hermit life keeping careful watch incase Equestria needed me.” Twilight looked at her mentor “How did he escape if you trapped him in the sun?” “I do not know Twilight” Celestia admitted. “He was always a cunning one and I guess it was unavoidable that some day he would find a way to escape.” “What are Gaia’s plans now?” “That I do not know, for not only was Gaia a cunning warrior he was also the only opponent that I could not figure out” Celestia admitted. “My guess is that he wants to finish what he started and try to take over Equestria again.” Gaia thought about Trixies question “I don’t know, I won’t try to make war on Celestia again if that’s what you’re asking, too many ponies were hurt last time. Besides her monarchy does seem to make them happy, if she does starts getting too power hungry though I will have to step in. For now though I am complacent to stay in the shadows.” He then looked at the girls with a slight grin “However that doesn’t mean that I won’t have a little fun and will aggravate her to no end, after all she did try to trap me in the sun and I so hate warm climates.” “So, you don’t hate the royal sisters” Trixie asked. “No, I don’t have any particular love for them either.” “Tell me Gaia, if the sun is more powerful than Earth how were you able to almost defeat Princess Celestia?” Lightningdust asked. “That is an excellent question, but easy to answer. You see the closer we are to our energies the stronger we are. Since Celestia was on Earth and some distance from the sun she was weakened while I was strengthened.” Twilight thought about how to defeat such a force as Gaia “What of the Elements of Harmony Princess?” she asked. “Can we not defeat him with those?” “No Twilight, because in our battles both him and I used Elements to try and get the edge over one another. I used The Elements of Harmony while he controlled the Elements of Knowledge and Wisdom we found that they simply cancelled each other out. It would appear that element users are unaffected by other elements. The only way to defeat him is with magic and trust me he is a master of it.” “I can learn Princess” Twilight replied trying to please her troubled mentor. “No! This is not like the other foes you had faced. Gaia is far beyond your capabilities, you must leave him to me and Luna. I do want you to train like you have never before though, Trixie is somehow mixed in Gaia’s schemes and I want you to defeat her and find out what she knows.” “I will do that right away!” Twilight replied and took off to study. “Wait!” Celestia called. Twilight stopped and stared at her. “You will not find what you need in the library. Since Gaia’s involved you will need to learn more powerful spells than you had before.” “Where can I learn these Princess?” “I will have to teach them to you” she replied. “So you are Prince Gaia then?” Lyra asked. “Ha! No, like I would want such a silly title. I told you, I believe in democracy” Gaia laughed at the thought of such a thing. Gaia looked at the girls “I think you are ready to hear my plan. For years now Celestia has been able to manipulate everything in Equestria to train Twilight for princess hood. In that course of time she even dabbled in things that she should not have, dangerous things. She even used her own possessed sister as a test for Twilight, how Luna managed to forgive Celestia is beyond me. Celestia is a cleaver pony but I fear her overconfidence will eventually get the better of her, if she is not reminded that not all plans work out the way they are supposed to. Soon, I fear that she will keep pushing her experiments and unleash unspeakable evil into this world.” “Experiments?” Wildfire asked “like mixtures that blow up!” “Some” Gaia replied. “Being connected to the Earth has allowed me to see many things going on in it.” “That’s how he does it!” Trixie replied stomping her hoof in triumph. “Anyway, Celestia was able to manipulate Discord to her side and now she has been dabbling with the idea of trying the same with some of the creatures of Tartarus. I have been to that land on my travels and let me tell you some of the creatures there will befriend her and as soon as her back is turned Equestria will be in ruins. Some of those creatures won’t even wait for her to turn her back. There is evil in there that Celestia does not understand.” “So how will you keep her from going forward with these plans?” “I believe that if we defeat her champions at the Equestrian games in the Crystal Empire this year and knock her ego down a few steps that she might abandon her plans. If she is reminded that alicorns are not the only powerful forces in this world and there are smarter beings than her, then caution might be put back into her actions. If it doesn’t then we still humiliate her and try to find another way to stop her plans.” “Can you really outsmart Celestia?” Lyra asked. “When we battled long ago she fell for every one of my traps, hopefully she will do the same today. I have been talking to the Griffin kingdom to sponsor us in the competition, I must ask though, would you four be willing to participate in the event?” “Will I be able to beat Dash and Spitfire?” Lightningdust asked in which Gaia nodded “then I’m in.” “Sounds fun, count me in” Wildfire agreed. Lyra thought about it “all of the different kingdoms coming together to play games against each other. This would be a chance to learn some more clues and hear nifty foreign songs, I’ll do it.” Trixie thought for a moment “I will have to face Twilight again, wont I?” Gaia nodded “and to do so I will have to become an alicorn, wont I?” again he nodded in response. “I guess I have no choice then, I’m going to end up dueling Twilight again anyway. I’ll do it then and beat Twilight once and for all.”