//------------------------------// // Failure is Always an Option // Story: Luna's Student // by MyWorld93 //------------------------------// Disclaimer: We the Fanfic writers of America do not own the rights to the MLP Universe, we do not have the freedom or liberty to use it, will not provide for the common defense of it in court. Now all the mares were laughing at me; great. Running into the wall had just been the beginning of a new set of troubles. Afterwards it had seemed like everything was going to go well; we were only a few feet from the entrance of the keep, but things soon began to go wrong for me. First I ended up tripping on a rock on the ground and falling onto my face. I could hear the laughter from behind me from my little accident; it was rather troublesome. That wasn’t even the last part; physics decided to throw the metaphorical hoof at me. When I hit the ground again, instead of just lying there, I bounced. That wouldn’t have been too bad if it had ended there, but it just had to get worse. The worst part however was yet to come. When I landed the second time it turned out that somepony had dug a pit trap; as you can probably guess, I fell in. So now here I am at the bottom of it with all of the mares were laughing at me from beyond my line of sight. There was only one thing I could do at this point. “Ow, my pride has been mortally wounded. Please feel free to keep laughing at my indignity.” That’s right; make a joke. Which I soon realized was really lacking in forethought, it just made them laugh harder. “Are you okay?” I thought I heard a voice say; it was such a quiet sounding noise, I wasn’t sure. The sound of laughter still coming from those mares made it even more difficult to hear. The only one who speaks that quietly was… Oh right, Fluttershy; I think that if things go well after this I’m going to make sure someone teaches her that speech should be louder than that of a moth. “Yeah I’m fine Fluttershy, thanks for asking.” I could hear her jump and make a small eeping sound; I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she reacts quietly even when startled, “but would you mind giving me a hoof out of here? It’s a little too deep for me to get out on my own.” I could still hear the rest of them laughing behind her. It hadn’t been that funny had it? Well maybe from an outsider’s perspective; I doubt anyone ever likes it when something like this happens to them. At least I wasn’t in any actual danger this time. Now that I think about it; I wonder why Fluttershy wasn’t laughing; maybe she was just too kind a pony to do that sort of thing? I mean all her friends seem to have found it funny; even if I didn’t. Well I still needed to get out here; hopefully Fluttershy would help me out, she was taking a while to respond. “Um… I think so.” Well that was good, for a second there I thought she was going to force me to beg or something; I mean I’d probably do it. I’d done sillier things to get out of places like this. It didn’t take her very long to put her hoof over the edge for me to grab; it was just barely close enough for me to grasp. I reached out my two hoofs to grasp hers, but once I’d taken hold of it my hoof felt peculiar; like someone had just poured something cold onto my hoof. I gave my hoof a small pull and instead of separating from the other ponies hoof like usually happened; it remained stuck together. “Hey Fluttershy, did you put superglue on your hoof?” I couldn’t believe I had just asked that, but oh well; hopefully she hadn’t heard me. “Oh my no I would never do something like that, my little animal friends might be hurt by it.” Well I think I now know that my original supposition of her being too kind to laugh was correct. Honestly talking to her reminds me of when I was a foal. In either case I needed to get out of this hole; so using Fluttershy’s hoof as a hanging point I tried to climb the wall; no matter how tried though there just wasn’t any real hoofholds to climb out with. Strangely it didn’t feel that she was moving at all; she must have found something really strong to hand onto. “Hey Fluttershy, you mind giving a pull; maybe you can help me climb a little.” “I…think so.” I felt a sudden jolt in my hoof followed by the sensation of flight. Unfortunately, that was quickly followed by the pain of landing on my backside. When I had stopped seeing stars I looked around a bit more; understanding that somehow I had gotten out of the pit. One second I had just been holding onto Fluttershy’s hoof asking for help and the next I was out here. This meant one of two things; either physics couldn’t survive being around two Pies and had fled in absolute terror or Fluttershy was a lot stronger than she looked. I’m pretty sure I could throw out the first theory; I could see her looking at her own hoof in wonder. So I’m going to assume physics failed or something had decided that Fluttershy should be a superhero. Now that I had gotten that conundrum over with I promptly gave Fluttershy a smile and a thank you, but as she began to smile back at me she caught sight of her own shadow and jumped into a bush. It was a cute sight, but I really hope she isn’t meant to be a hero of some sort because if she is Equestria is doomed. Oh well, at least she’s nice. I could still hear the others laughing at my former predicament; you’d think they would have stopped when I was able to get out of the hole. I was starting to wonder what was wrong with them; I could have been seriously hurt. I mean I know about Schadenfreude and all, but there is a point where it should stop being funny. It was time to give them a piece of my mind. I turned around to face them; I was going to give them one of my infamous lectures, “Hey girls stop laughing I could have been seriousl…” Twilight’s face was blue; that could not be good. I took a closer look; Twilight wasn’t the only one who was blue in the face, Pinkie was the only one who didn’t look that color. That shouldn’t even be possible, our fur covers our face. What was worse was that I could see fear in their eyes; they were scared. They weren’t laughing at me because they wanted to; they were laughing because they literally couldn’t stop. This was…well way beyond not good; they were literally laughing themselves to death. When had this happened? I hadn’t left them alone since I found them. Okay that doesn’t matter right now; what does matter is finding a solution. I need to get them to stop laughing. The most obvious way would be to knock them out, but that left far too many unknowns, besides which I didn’t know anyway to do so without causing rather harsh damage to their skulls. What I really need is more time to think, time I currently don’t have. So my first goal is to make sure they have enough air to breathe; hopefully I can find a solution after that. There had to be some spell that could allow them to breathe through something other than their mouth. Unfortunately, all the spells that would come to mind were all designed to simply allow a pony to survive in places without air by creating a bubble. There had to be at least one spell that would do the job. I heard the chirping of a bird nearby; distracting me from my thoughts. I glared over at them; the mother bird was watching over her eggs… It was the night of the Grand Galloping Gala, the Royal gardens were completely flooded with aristocratic ponies; anyone who was anyone was here. It was the perfect time for those who were trying to gain favors from Luna and Celestia to say their piece; everypony enjoyed the setting. “Teacher I’m bored.” I was far too young at the time to enjoy these kinds of parties, not to mention that the only other pony here around my age was Diamond and she was forced to sit by Celestia on the other side of the room. From what I could see of her expression she was just felt just as bored as I was. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy spending time with Luna, but only when I can actually talk to her. All of the other ponies were taking up all her time. “So Dawn, bored are you?” Luna’s voice drew my attention to her; apparently there was enough a slight lull in visitors for the moment. I shook my head quickly, “No of course not.” I am not going to tell my teacher that I’m not having fun at one of her parties. She gave me a smile, “Dawn, don’t worry about it.” She leaned in close to me and whispered, “I am to; should I liven things up?” I nodded my head; I could see the glow around her horn glow out of the corner of my eye. While Luna was charging her spell we both pretended to still be interested in the ponies that were talking to Luna. A few minutes later Luna released her spell into the room. The spell remained unseen or at least unspoken about throughout the room as it spread. Soon however, shouts of wonder began to fill the hall until they themselves were caught in an egg. Soon the room was silent, but that didn’t last long. The ponies, who had been dressed in their very best clothes, popped from their shells covered in the multicolored hues of chicken feathers. I could see as they took their first look at their new dress and as they tried to rush out of the room in a panic. The more ponies that broke out of their eggs; the larger the chaos became. I began to laugh loudly at what I was seeing; it was just the perfect way to break up the evening. “WHO IS RESPONSIBLE PERFORMED THIS TRAVESTY!?” My attention was drawn towards Celestia and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing harder at the sight; she was dressed in her own white chicken suit, appearing much less regal. My laughter must have been infectious because I could hear other ponies laughing with me. It seems that everypony was actually enjoying this event now. “LUNA!” Well, all except one. Wait a minute that was it; Luna’s Prank spell it could keep them stable long enough. Due to the way the spell functions like an egg it feeds those it is used on air. It may be embarrassing, but hopefully they wouldn’t kill me for it afterwards. I set to work right away; loading the spell into my horn and launching it at the group. Upon impact the spell set to work; wrapping the mares in colorful eggs that matched the color of their coats; I can only hope that it works like I remember, I don’t think that I will have enough time to figure out another one. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM!?” I fell over in surprise; I hadn’t seen her approach me at all. I was about to respond when I caught sight of her eyes; they were the widest I’d ever seen on a pony. Worse was the feeling of fear that was flowing into me just by looking at them. I was shaking like crazy at the sight; at this point I’d be willing to tell her anything she wanted as long as she didn’t rip my head off. “It’s a prank spell,” her eyes remained in mostly the same position, but they seemed contract slightly, lessoning the amount of fear I was feeling; which was probably a good thing. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” The fact that she wasn’t releasing as much fear didn’t make her any less scary though. “I think that they were placed under a spell of some sort; they were literally laughing themselves to death.” That explanation seemed to calm her down; hopefully I wouldn’t have to deal with that again. I had never heard of magic like that; it was incredibly powerful. The ability to look somepony in the eye and essentially force them to do what you wanted; that was beyond anything I had heard before. The most amazing part though was that it had performed by a Pegasus. I have never heard of a Pegasus that was able to do this kind of magic before; perhaps it had been developed in the last thousand years while I was in stone? I’d need to study the phenomenon more before I knew for sure, but it would be interesting to find out. It was possible that it was inborn skill like my families’; maybe she was the recipient or progenitor of a new family like mine. I was going to learn more about this, but later; there were more important things right now. “Oh…oh my I’m so sorry about that,” I could actually hear her now; it seems that she was feeling more confident about being in my presence; if I had been able to do that to somepony I would probably feel more confident to, “but is there anything we can do?” Fluttershy was shaking slightly in place, likely she was nervous. I don’t know what to tell her, I’d bought us some time to come up with a plan, but that didn’t mean that there was anything I could do. I needed more information before doing anything else. “I really don’t know; I need more information about what has happened to them. Did you see anything strange happen after I fell into that pit?” “Umm… I don’t think so…if that’s okay I mean.” “Well that at least gives me some information to work with.” So at the moment the only thing I really knew was that whatever had happened had either been invisible to a pegasus, which was a possibility or that it had been cast earlier. Well there was one way to find out exactly had happened…A diagnostic spell. Essentially a diagnostic spell is designed to see what magic have been affecting an pony or object over a fairly short period of time; looking out of the corner of your eye would only show you what was going on at the current time. “Okay Fluttershy, I’m going to be casting a diagnostic spell on your friends okay?” I did not want a repeat performance of that stare; if it took me a little bit longer to get my work done because I had to explain it to her I was going to take that chance. Fluttershy nodded her head at me; that was good, I wouldn’t have to worry about her doing that to me again at the moment. Now that I think about it, I’m going to need to watch out for her doing that later during my prank with Luna. That could completely ruin the entire thing. I cast the diagnostic spells upon the eggs, which soon returned with a visible matrix of floating symbols and colors that represented the magic that was in use around the eggs. Nothing in the image really stood out to me; all I could really see was my own pink spell and Luna’s dark blue one. “I can’t seem to find anything special here, but there has to be something in there I just need to look more.” Actually for that matter I couldn’t figure out why Fluttershy hadn’t been affected by this laughter problem. Maybe it required a trigger; something to set it off? Maybe she would have been affected if she had laughed at my predicament, but because she was too kind to do so the spell hadn’t activated? There was another possibility, but it seemed so unlikely that I instantly discarded it; it just didn’t fit her actions so far. I’d need to make sure that the spell wasn’t on her after I finished; I didn’t want her to stop breathing the next time she decided something was funny. I wanted to be friends with this group after Luna and I finished our prank. Time to get back on topic; I wasn’t sure how much longer the egg spell would last. Using my magic I magnified parts of the spell matrix, hoping that something would stand out. Maybe the spell would turn out to be a special shape or a different size; it was all I could hope for. I searched it from top to bottom, but I couldn’t find a single thing that was out of place. This was really starting to become a problem; there had to be something there. I mean they were turning blue through their fur; that does not happen naturally. “UGH I can’t find a single thing in here!” I was getting far too frustrated, I needed to remain calm and in control. “Um…what this green thing… if you don’t mind me asking.” Fluttershy’s voice rang out from behind me. I nearly jumped in surprise, but I was able to repress the instinct. Luckily it hadn’t been someone from my family or I’d be hanging from a tree branch right now. “Green?” I zoomed in at the point she was pointing at; right at the point where she had been pointing was a spell matrix that I had missed. rThat was some really good eyesight right there; if she wasn’t currently pointing at it I would have completely overlooked it. “That is some good eyesight.” I gave her a smile. “Oh…um thank you?” I have no idea why she is questioning my compliment, but I really don’t have time to question it right now; I’d just put it on the backburner for later. Now that I could actually see what was causing the uncontrolled laughter I was going to go over it with a fine toothed comb. “Fluttershy do you have a fine toothed comb?” “Um what?” She was giving one of the cutest looks of incomprehension that I had ever seen. Since I didn’t really have time to contemplate that I looked for my own, finding it right next to the yellow bus. Why was Fluttershy looking at me funny? “Never mind; I found it.” I grabbed the small silver comb with my magic and began to brush apart the different pieces of the spell, trying to find what made it tick. Fortunately, I had seen this spell before meaning it wouldn’t take much work to remove it. It was a near exact match for one of Luna’s personal spells, one called Laugh Track. The spell just forced whoever was watching her to give a chuckle or two at whatever was going on. However there was one difference with the spell here and her normal model. This one lacked the precious time code symbols, meaning that the spell was essentially looping. To stop it all I’d need to do was place the time symbols back into the spell; which was a fairly simple job. Taking the comb I carved the mark into the correct slot and before you could say ‘we ain’t found anything’ the spell had been completed and removed from the matrix. I’d still have to wait for the egg spell to end though. Now that I had time to think about it where in world did this spell come from? I mean the only people who Luna ever taught that spell to were Diamond, Celestia, and me. I mean I realize that the spell doesn’t require that much power or control, it was rather simple really, but it wasn’t common knowledge. So who cast it; I know it wasn’t me and I doubt Luna would have done it, but I couldn’t give a single good reason for Celestia stopping a group that was on her side. Had she discovered our plan? It was the best idea I could think of; the only other option was rather unthinkable and furthermore highly unlikely. I must have been in thought for quite a while because Fluttershy tapped me on the shoulder to bring me out of them; she held out her hoof towards the eggs. It seems that while I was deep in my thoughts the eggs had completed their final cycle and were hatching. The eggs exploded into confetti revealing the five mares dressed in their mane colored chicken costumes, exactly like every other time the spell had been cast. The sight was too much for me; while I realized that it had been a rather close shave with death for the group of them I still couldn’t help myself from giving a chuckle or two at the sight. I’d always rather enjoyed this spell; although I preferred using it at the stuffy parties of aristocrats. It was always amusing to watch those trying to curry favors be humiliated. I fell into the memories of a couple of the other times that Luna had shown me that spell. “OH MY! What am I wearing!? This thing is an absolute atrocity; well actually it could be worse, at least it matches my mane.” Rarity exclaimed, trying to pull of the chicken suit with little success. The costume would keep themselves on by force for at least a little while longer; the spell had been designed to be humiliating after all. “I kind of like it!” Pinkie was bouncing her pink colored beak at the ground; I guess she was pretending to be a chicken. “BCAWCK!” Yeah I guess I was right. Honestly it was so reminiscent of my sister’s antics that if I didn’t know better I really would have thought that she was here instead of Pinkie. I was rather enjoying the sight of the spectacle, especially after how I had felt a few minutes ago. Soon though she finished with her little act and pulled off the costume placing it in her saddlebag. Watching that gave me a headache; the space and time mechanics involved just boggled the mind, even when you accepted that it was possible. I know I use that ability as well; doesn’t mean it ever made sense to me. “I think I’ll hold onto this.” “Well darling, you may enjoy wearing, but I don’t. I’m just going to go over there and rip it to shreds.” It seems that Rarity didn’t share Pinkie’s enthusiasm. At least she wasn’t attacking me; it seemed that it was going well. “I think I’ll give this to Scootaloo as a gift; I think it would fit her.” I have no idea who Scootaloo is, but at least Dash didn’t sound angry about what had happened. The last thing I wanted to do was tangle with anything that was even mildly related to the Night Guard. Those guys had been vicious; several times I’d seen them lift a pony many times their own size and weight and throw them very very far away. I knew that it was at least partially attributable to the same training that I had gone through with Luna, but a lot of that strength had come from the genetic alterations that Luna had performed upon them. I wasn’t going to be going up against someone like that without a good reason or a lot of preparation. “Whoo Weee! Glad to finally be out of that thing.” I looked towards Applejack, apparently while I was looking at the other three they had managed to remove the costume from themselves. Likely Twilight’s doing, that spell should have held for at least a little longer. I have no idea where they put the costumes though because they weren’t anywhere around them. “So what happened? Why were we in those costumes? Last thing I remember I couldn’t stop laughing.” Twilight was giving me an concerned look look; I had the feeling that it was more what the spell I had used was than anything else though. I couldn’t think of a single good reason not to explain; I knew that we needed to reach the keep quickly, but Fluttershy already knew that a spell had been involved. If I tried to hide what had just happened than it was possible that I might just lose their trust. “Well, someone or something cast a spell on you,” I didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell them about my suspicions of who had actually had cast the spell; it probably would lose me their trust even faster than not telling them this, “it would have literally made you laugh yourself to death. That costume spell was the only one I could think of to feed you air while I tried to remove it.” A gasp arose from all the mares except Fluttershy; who just hid behind her hooves shivering. Apparently the revelation that they had been near the possibility of death was shocking to them; I couldn’t blame them I would be in the same position given what happened. Being that close to death with no control of the outcome isn’t something I would wish on anypony. “Well that was eggciting revelation, but that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s so obvious that it was Nightmare Moon; so now we just have more reason to finish her off right?” It seems that Rainbow was the first to recover; I guess she was easily able to bounce back from these kinds of things. Also I like her puns, they remind me of my own; terrible as they may be. I wonder if after whatever happens here happens she and Pinkie would want to go pranking. “Tarnations Rainbow we all would have died if it wasn’t for dawn and you just say we should keep moving on!?” Looks like some parts of the group were slightly more traumatized by the experience than they had let on previously. Hopefully it wouldn’t last too long. “Well what else would you have me do! Just wait around cowering as Nightmare Moon brings eternal night!?” She raised a hoof in the air and hit the ground, “We can’t just do that; we need to keep going and stop her!” I may not like all this talk about hurting my teacher, but whatever got them moving would work for me. “I suppose you’re right Rainbow; there’s nothing that we can do about the past but keep it from repeating itself. Let’s go stop Nightmare Moon!” At least they seemed to be in the right mood, but still this whole thing worries me. If it was Celestia than our prank would take care of it, but if it wasn’t… We all trotted into the keep. Our entrance into the keep was uneventful; which was lucky for my slightly frayed nerves. I had expected that somewhere between then and now Celestia would have tried to stop me. However, now that we were actually in here I was much less worried; our plan was almost in motion. We walked through the entrance hall into the central room of the keep. The room was utterly; pillars had fallen over onto the floor and the floor itself was covered in more cracks than ever. What had happened here? I wasn’t gone that long was I? Wait, there was something else wrong with this scene… "Where the buck are the Elements!” And that was it; where I had left the Elements there were now only a set of stone shaped orbs. This was far worse than I had thought it was just from the scene of destruction that surrounded us. Without the Elements Luna and I would be unable to complete this prank. For that matter where in the world was Luna? Had something happened to her? I couldn’t think of a single good reason for Luna to leave of her own accord, she was needed here to work the power gathering portion of the spell. What was I going to do now? Neither the Elements nor Luna were here, I’d need to find both of them and keep the mares in this keep for this to work. Okay think how do I keep a group of mares busy? Besides that anyway. “We need to find them!” Twilight’s voice rang out nervously, “It’s the only way to keep Nightmare Moon from bringing eternal night.” Well I could work with this; get them to search the building while I await Luna’s return; hopefully she would bring the Elements with her. “Um I might have a thought…if that’s okay with you I mean.” I could barely hear Fluttershy speak, but Rainbow seemed to have no trouble and nodded her head in agreement. “Um… Maybe we should split up and search, maybe the Elements are down there?” I blinked, Fluttershy, the seemingly least outgoing of the group was suggesting that we should split up. There was something weird going on here, but I wasn’t going to look too much into it. It was a golden opportunity. It would give me enough time to find Luna and get one step closer to my ultimate goal…Hanging out with Twilight! I mean finishing this prank, yeah that’s what I meant. “That’s sounds a little dangerous Fluttershy; splitting into groups like that might make us easier targets for Nightmare Moon.” That shouldn’t be a problem, Luna wasn’t likely to attack them anyway; I just needed to give her time to get back here. I think a little push might help. “I agree with Fluttershy; it may be dangerous, but we’re not going to get anywhere just sitting around here waiting.” I could only hope that my endorsement held some water; they had just met me a little while ago, but hopefully my little rescue gave me some credibility. “I suppose you’re right Dawn. Okay gang we’re going to split up,” Dash flew down one the corridors, I suppose she must have already been thinking about it and was just waiting for the go ahead, “into groups… Wait Dash come back! Well at least this means we have an even number. Fluttershy and Rarity, you go down that passageway, Applejack and Pinkie Pie go down that one, Dawn and I will continue to search in here. If you find anything holler and the rest of us will come running.” This couldn’t have worked out better if I’d actually tried to set this up; positive coincidences strikes again. Now I had enough time to find out what was going on and I’d get to spend time with Twilight to boot; this was perfect, even if it still felt vaguely weird because I had really only just met her. Well in any case I began to search the room looking for any clues about where Luna had headed off to; likely I could use that to tell the rest of the group where to go to find the Elements and we would be one step closer to our pranking goal. Since I didn’t need my full attention on searching the room; I really was mostly stalling for time, I decided to try and make some conversation with Twilight. “So Twilight, I never did ask why a group of cute mares would want to come to a place like this. I mean I think I’ve understood that you’re here to stop Nightmare Moon, but why you?” Now that I think about it, I probably should have got them to tell me this earlier, I’m surprised none of them have questioned me about my overabundance of knowledge about magical subjects yet. “Nopony else would believe me; even Celestia just shot me down when I first mentioned it to her.” Really? Well that just took the cake, Celestia wouldn’t even believe her dear student? I don’t think there was single time that Luna ever just turned me down without at least an explanation about why something couldn’t be true. “Then when Nightmare Moon actually turned up everyone else just acted scared and we didn’t have a choice. I wouldn’t have it any other way though, I think I’m best fit for this job.” “So how did you plan on stopping L-Nightmare Moon.” If she heard my little slip she didn’t mention it; she just continued searching on her half of the room. I was starting to get worried though, I hadn’t found hide or tail of Luna anywhere in the room; I was starting to get worried, what had happened to her. “With the Elements of Harmony; they are magical artifacts that contain the energy of harmony from all over Equestria. If they can’t stop Nightmare Moon, nothing can and that’s why we need to find them.” We fell into an companionable silence while we continued to search. I still couldn’t find anything, but I did still have one last ace in my arsenal, my detection spell. Maybe it could shed some light on what had happened here in any case. Taking a quick glance at Twilight to make sure she wasn’t looking, I wasn’t sure that I could have found a way to explain what I was doing, I surreptitiously began to cast the spell; making sure to make it very small and difficult to discern from the surrounding debris. A small explosion erupting from my spell disabused me of that notion. “Hey Dawn are you alright?” I didn’t answer immediately. My spell had literally exploded in my face, but that wasn’t the worst part. No the worst part was what I had seen and was now feeling; I had seen a dark energy approaching, surrounding Luna’s own power and it was getting bigger. I had no idea what had happened, but it was dangerous. “Twilight get over here! Something’s coming!” I couldn’t very well tell her what was going on, why would she trust me. Unfortunately my answer must have confused her because she just stood where she was for a few seconds, but soon enough I could see her beginning to trot over. A boom sounded from the dais in the room; probably the only spot that had been free from the rubble. Through the smoke that had appeared with the explosion I could see Luna, but she was different. The most prominent of changes was the dark energy that wafted off of her in waves. Honestly that dark energy was inducing a fear in me almost as strong as I had felt when under the effect of Fluttershy’s stare; which might be the only reason I was still standing or it might have been that I could still feel small bits of my teacher’s energy flowing through the dark, giving me some strength. I don’t know what had happened to my teacher during the time I had been collecting Twilight and her friends, my best guess was a possession, but it was obviously not going to go well for anyone; Luna and I especially. I need to figure out what was going on here before something else went wrong. “TWILIGHT SPARKLE,” Too late it seems, apparently whatever had taken control of her could force her to speak, “IT SEEMS THAT THOU HAS MADE IT THROUGH ALL OF OUR TRAPS UNSCATHED. THOU HAVE BECOME A PAIN IN OUR SIDE AND THOU SHALL FEEL OUR WRATH.” She was building up power in her horn; getting ready to fire it at the frozen in fear Twilight. I needed to do something to stop her before she managed to actually fire; I didn’t want Twilight hurt and my teacher would never forgive herself if she actually hurt somepony. Maybe I could redirect the energy beam somewhere else? Too much of a power requirement, if I could have reached Twilight I might have been able to do something, but not by myself. Maybe I could… My thought process was shut off by a sudden change in the ambient energy; it was still, no more energy was being drawn towards the horn. I could feel it begin to build up to a point, than I felt the energy release. “No!” I didn’t have enough time to do anything so I just waited for whatever was going to happen. After a couple of seconds of nothing seeming to happen I opened my eyes. From what I could now see, the energy had apparently been dissipated freely rather than actually fired, why had that happened? “WHAT?” It seems that whatever was possessing Luna was as confused by the lack of firepower as I was, “FINE THAN, SINCE IT SEEMS WE CANNOT BE RID OF THOU WE WILL UTILIZE THOU TO COMPLETE OUR PLAN. THOU SHALT COME WITH US.” This was actually very good; if confusing, whatever had taken control of my teacher didn’t seem to have full control over all of her powers, which meant that we would still have a chance. Our best option would have been the Elements of Harmony, but with them missing we’d need to try something else instead. I needed to think of something The sound of hoofbeats approaching distracted me from my thoughts; I guess they must have been attracted by the sound of Luna’s booming voice. This was very good; the more ponies we had available the more we would be able to do. I glanced towards the entrances to the room and was dismayed to see dark blue barriers blocking any entrance of the other mares. “I would never allow you to bring about eternal night!” That line brought my attention to Twilight. She was shaking like a leaf in the wind, but I had to admire the bravery it took to stand up to a possessed Unicorn; she was a lot more like Diamond than I had thought she was. “YOU SHALL COME WITH US.” “Not!” “SHALL!” Wait, was Luna actually arguing with Twilight? This could be good or bad. On the one hoof might mean, if I combined this with her earlier actions, that whatever had taken her over either hadn’t finished or was too weak to do so completely, but on the other hoof we were still dealing with a relative unknown. It was possible that it was just the kind of being that enjoyed playing with its target and that the whole thing had been an act. The best chance we had still lay with Elements of Harmony; which were still currently lost. With my luck though, the stones that stood where the Elements had been were actually the Elements. “Not!” “SHALL!” “Not!” “SHALL!” “Not!” “NOT” “You will take me with you and that’s final.” I couldn’t help but stare at Twilight for that response; I would have thought she’d be able to see that coming a mile away. Luna smiled at Twilight, who had a look of dawning realization about what had just happened. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t have any time to ruminate on what had occurred because Luna teleported both of them and those stone out of the room with her. I suppose my supposition had been correct and those actually were the Elements; what had turned them into stone than? That didn’t matter right now and neither did how Luna teleported through an anti-teleportation barrier. The only thing I needed to worry about right now was stopping whatever was possessing Luna from doing whatever it was it was trying to do. There are way to many unknowns here really. One thing I know for a fact though is that the only way to use the Elements of Harmony was with the cooperation of all six of these mares; otherwise nothing would happen. A memory of that dream flashed into my head. It wouldn’t be doing that right? I mean there was no way it could have possibly known about that right? I wasn’t even sure if that dream had been about something real. ‘But what if it did.’ I hate it when my own mind talks back to me, especially when it was right, if it did know about that and was trying to get Twilight to use a spark of magic on them than this was about to become a much more dire and terrible problem. I needed to hurry; I needed to follow them. “What in tarnation just happened here?” Applejack voice pulled me out my nervous thoughts; bringing me back to the present. It didn’t decrease the necessity of following Luna and Twilight however. I needed to follow them quickly and that wouldn’t be happening if I had to explain everything to the other mares; all of which now appeared to be in the room with me! “Listen I don’t have time to explain, I need to find Twilight and Luna and stop them from killing each other!” I suddenly realized that I had just blurted out something that was not going to help my case and I also realized that I had no idea where Luna had taken Twilight. This was not going to go well for me. “Who’s Luna and for that matter who are you really? I mean you found us in the woods while wandering around; how likely is that?” I think that Rainbow was in just as much shock as I was and was really looking for something to lash out at, but I really didn’t have the time to act as her metaphysical punching bag right now. I really needed to hurry and find them, but I’d need the help of these mares in order to save both of them. “Listen I promise I’ll tell you everything just as soon as we rescue both of them; if we don’t stop them right away it’s possible something very bad would happen.” I hope they would buy it, I don’t have enough time to explain right now. “I don’t believe you.” It seemed that Rainbow was going to remain stubborn. Honestly I don’t think I had done anything to warrant any more of this treatment, but at the moment I didn’t care. I’d figure out the reason later, right now it was more important that I stop what could possibly happen. I was going to pull out my trump trust card; hopefully it had remained the same over the last thousand years. “Cross my heart, hope to fly,” I heard a gasp from Pinkie, either it hadn’t changed much over the years or it meant something really horrible now. I could only hope that it was the former; considering that only Pinkie seemed to recognize it I suppose it was likely, “stick a cupcake in my eyOWWW.” Every single time; no matter the situation, I stick it in my eye, “do you believe me now?” “Of course I believe you no one would ever make a Super Special Pie Promise without meaning it,” I could see that Dash didn’t know what Pinkie was talking about, but I guess she decided she would at least trust Pinkie if not me, “Not that I didn’t believe you beforehoof, I know you said it so that Rainbow would be willing to let you go find Twilight and your teacher Luna.” You know I have no idea how she knew that; I’m related to her and I still can’t figure her out. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt…for now at least.” That was likely the best I was going to get from Dash, but it would be enough. All I needed to do now was to think of a plan to actually find them. I knew some basic tracking spells from Mister E’s books on lost items, but I doubted that they would work here. They only really worked well if you had a very strange gang working with you… hmm you know this could actually work perfectly. However, the moment before I began to ask them for help something strange occurred; my tail decided it would be helping out. I have no idea why it would do that, mostly it only works when danger would befall me; but I wasn’t going to turn down its generous offer. It was performing some odd movement that I had never seen it do before, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to decipher it myself. However, I was lucky enough to have Pinkie Pie around. “Hey Pinkie do you know what this tail movement means?” She nodded, “Of course I know what it means; it’s super easy. It means that whatever your thinking about is right above you just one floor up.” She gasped, “That means that Twilight is right above us, Pie Stallions have always been really good at tail tracking!” She was smiling widely at me; this was better than I had hoped for. Through the rather convenient plot device of my tail I knew exactly where Luna had taken Twilight. Why was everyone looking at Pinkie Pie and I with such a strange look? I would have thought that daily exposure to Pinkie would have built up their immunity to the weird that came with my family. Maybe they hadn’t been around her long enough to actually figure it out. Well in any case, now that I knew where Twilight and Luna actually were I could develop a much more comprehensive plan. I could just teleport myself up there, but that barrier was likely still in place… Wait a second, how in the world had Luna teleported through the barrier; I don’t care how powerful she is, she shouldn’t have been able to break through it. The only possibility is that the barrier was somehow taken down; which was actually kind of scary when I thought about what would have been needed to do that. The sheer power necessary would have been far beyond even Celestia; this could be problematic. Well at least I now had a way to get to them, but I’d need to make sure the rest of the group followed me up there. Meaning my main goal when I warped up there would be to stall Luna. “Okay here’s the plan, I’m going to teleport up there and stall them; when I arrive I’ll set up a Pie Beacon in the room for you to follow. I need all of you to get there as fast as you can, the only way were likely to finish this quickly is to utilize the Elements of Harmony and for that we need all of you. Hopefully it won’t be too late.” Before they could even respond to me I had already set my horn alight and with a pop of displaced air I was gone. I could only hope they would come find us. With the glow of my horn and a pop of air, I left the surprised group behind. I could only hope that they would reach us in time to activate the Elements. My arrival into the room was greeted with little fanfare, in fact I felt outright ignored. The first thing I did was use the Pie Beacon Spell; I have no idea how it actually works, but Pie mares can track the thing down like it was the tastiest treat on Equestria. I could feel the tension in the air between Twilight and Luna. Perhaps some remnant of the barrier was still working and had kept me from being noticed? Well whatever the reason it seems that I still had time and the Element of surprise could work to my advantage. Now I needed to stall them, what would be the best way to do that? “WELL TWILIGHT SPARKLE, WILL YOU HELP ME NOW? OR WILL I HAVE TO DO WHAT I HAVE THREATENED?” Luna’s Royal Voice stopped me before I could even begin to plan; it seemed louder than it usual but for once wasn’t causing me any ear damage. Normally just being in the same room as her when she used that voice was enough to make eardrums rupture. There wasn’t any way that Twilight would do what my possessed teacher asked no matter what she threatened; if I was really lucky maybe she would stall long enough for everyone else to arrive. I shouldn’t have thought that; something was going to go wrong now; I know my luck. Twilight nodded her head slowly, still glaring at my possessed teacher. I knew it, apparently I was wrong and that threat had been much worse than I thought it was going to be. “GOOD, THAN PUSH THY MAGIC INTO THE ROCKS IN FRONT OF THEE.” Looks like that bit of my mind that said it was going to do this had been right on the money. I had precious little time to come up with a good plan, I could already see the spark forming on Twilight’s horn. Luckily though it seemed she was trying to take as long as possible to reach the point of firing. Well I better think this through carefully, but quickly; no matter how slowly Twilight loaded the spell it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two. My first thought was to simply jump out there and knock Twilight out of position, but that likely wouldn’t work to well; Luna would just flash fry me the moment she saw me. I glanced up to see how much more time I had until Twilight had built up her spark; it was already huge! I guess she was taking as long as she could to stall for time, she could have easily fired it off earlier. Strangely Luna didn’t seem to be doing anything to move her fast; I’m starting to wonder how much control the possessing creature actually has over my teacher. Still either way I didn’t have more than a minute left. Okay there is something obvious I’m missing here, I mean I still don’t understand what this entity was going to get out of doing this. The only thing that should occur, if that vision I saw was right which is still pretty questionable, is the death of both Twilight and Luna. I mean why would a controlling entity want to destroy its own host? I mean unless it was having a hard time controlling it! There was one option, it may be cliché but if I can tell Luna about an emotionally charged memory from her past maybe I could knock the creature out of the control or at least stall for time. There were far too many unknowns for me to really know if this plan would work, but I was running out of time and it was the best plan I could think of. The first thing I’d need to do was keep Twilight from killing Luna and herself; those Elements are dangerous. So using what was probably the least intelligent plan I could think of; I galloped straight into Twilight knocking both of us into one of the walls. “Oww!” Twilight smiled me; I guess she was glad that she hadn’t been able to do what Luna had asked. “SO THOU HAST CHANGED THY MIND! BECAUSE WE ARE MERCIFUL, THOU SHALT HAVE ONE MORE CHANCE ON THIS TASK.” Since it hadn’t just obliterated us I’m going to take a guess and say that the reason it was granting us another chance was that it really didn’t have as much control as I thought it did; maybe Luna’s will was holding it back or something; likely it would give Twilight as many chances as she needed until she actually did do it. I wonder why she didn’t mention me though; I mean I wasn’t exactly hiding anymore and she could have likely used me as bargaining chip, but if I was right than the creature controlling her might be hiding me from her sight. Catching sight of me likely would have given her enough of a push to regain full control. “Twilight,” She looked like she was going to start asking questions but I cut her off, “Listen we need to stop Luna and we’re not going to be able to do that until all of you are together again, but one thing you must not use is use a magic spark. I promise I’ll tell you everything that’s going on just as soon as everyone is safe.” “But what.” I knew she was inquisitive, but this was not the time for it. “Afterwards I promise, right now I need you to repeat exactly what I tell you and I think that everyone will be getting out of this alive.” There was one memory in particular that I was sure would at the least keep Luna interested until the rest of the group had arrived; my entrance exam. That day had been full of excitement and many other emotions. My parents had given me advice on how to succeed; as well as informed me about what would happen if I should fail. My sister on the other hand simply told me to do my best, while her own lagamorph familiar walked around talking and for some reason referring to Blueberry as Sam. I’d always wondered why he was always asking for something called a gun. However, now I was by myself in the waiting room; everyone else had already finished with their turns. Most foals who went into the room came out with their own familiar, however, the few who didn’t were generally in tears. I could understand, when you failed you were often kicked from your family home and stricken from the record; nobody wanted a failure as part of their family. I heard a click and turned towards the door to see the last foal come out smiling with a green dragon on her back. The three diamonds on the dragon’s markings on its tail marked him as Diamond’s familiar; not to mention that it was riding on her back. I would have given my congratulation to her, but speaking in the waiting room was strictly forbidden. It was all part of the test I had been told; it was designed to make the foals nervous so that they would be forced to do the job under more difficult position. It may have worked on me if I hadn’t already been extremely frightened of what my parents would do to me if I failed. Since I couldn’t speak to her I just gave her a smile; and received one in return. She quickly left; her dragon looking back at me with an interested expression. “Dawn Pie please enter the summoning chamber; it is your turn.” I stood up from the chair and trotted towards the door. I could feel my nerves increasing the closer I got to the door, step by painful step I got closer. As soon as I passed the threshold the door slammed shut behind me. The summoning chamber was huge; I had heard that it was designed that way in order to handle the kind of familiars that could be summoned; the largest one I had ever seen was a giant red dog named Clifford. I took a glance downward; littering the floor was the summoning circle; filled with magical symbols and texts that denoted what it was designed to do. However, it was the final thing in the room that surprised me the most. Sitting in the examiners area was Princess Luna. Honestly, that gave a huge boost to my ego. It wasn’t often that one of the princesses personally presided over an entrance exam. Most times it was just a high ranking unicorn; the princesses had to feel there was something special about you to even think about coming. If I passed this maybe I’d even end up as her personal student; then maybe my parents would be proud of me. I doubted it, but it was a nice thought. “Dawn Pie before beginning please listen to these instructions. By performing this ritual you will be summoning your lifelong familiar. Do you understand?” I nodded my head in confirmation; I’d always wondered what would happen if you said no. Somehow I doubted they would just let you leave, it was somewhat of a secret environment. “Good, although I realize that you likely already know this I am still required explain it to you. As a control type Unicorn you must wrap your magic around the circle itself and call to the creature’s nature; you will not be able to simply force it into existence like a power Unicorn could.” Huh that was weird, I’d never actually heard that before; maybe she really wanted me succeed? I’ll admit that I’d never heard of Luna actually taking a student before, but honestly considering how rarely anyone heard anything about the night princess I’d never really thought about it. Well I wasn’t going to look this tree in its branches. “Please begin now.” I found the magic in my center, it was only a small puddle at this point but it would grow, and grabbed it. I pulled on it, shaping it into a circle, before sending it out through my horn onto the summoning circle. That was when I felt it, something that felt like it was almost a part of me; I felt for its nature and began the process of turning my magic circle into a rope. Once I had finished the shape change, which was actually easier than simply pulling my familiar directly like I’d planned to, I sent one end of it out towards the creature I felt and pulled. Even though my eyes were closed I could still see my familiar in my mind’s eye; it was small, blue, and pink. I couldn’t quite make out what it was exactly, but I knew that it wouldn’t matter. I’d find out soon enough. I kept pulling harder and harder; trying to bring it to me, but something was wrong. It actually felt like it was resisting; I pulled harder anyway I was not going to fail. I kept pulling harder, but I could feel the magic fraying, getting closer and closer to the breaking point until it simply broke. I fell to the ground gasping, but the worst part was that my heart was in the bottom of my stomach. I had failed, there was no familiar in front of me; worse I had failed in front of the Princess. My family would disown me, I’d be homeless. The worst part was that I would likely never get to see my sister again. I started to cry, the wet tears hit the ground marring the ground. I began to stand up and turn around to leave in shame; I didn’t want to hear it when she announced my failure. “You passed.” What did she just say? I must need to get my hearing checked. I turned around to face the princess and saw a smile on her face. “What did you say?” My voice was hoarse from my tears. “You passed.” She was still smiling; this had to be a hallucination, there was no way that I had passed. I mean I hadn’t even managed to call my familiar. “I…passed?” I was hesitant, I needed to process this. I hadn’t summoned anything at all; I’d only gotten close. There was no way that could be right. The princess must be playing teasing me; I’d never thought she would have been that cruel though. “Yes you Dawn Pie passed.” “How?” “Although you did not manage to bring your familiar here it was not due to any fault of your own; there was another entity involved.” She held out a piece of paper with her magic, “This is your certificate of acceptance; go show it to your family.” She was still smiling at me and I couldn’t help but smile back. Grabbing the piece of paper I galloped all the way home. The last thing I heard as I left was something that started with a C that sounded very much like a curse. I didn’t care, I’d passed. I continued to gallop all the way to my home and even into the foyer. My parents had been lounging in front of the fireplace when I rushed in and showed them the sheet of paper. However, when I heard them gasp I could feel my heart sink; maybe it really had been an elaborate prank by Luna and I was about to be kicked out of my home. I looked at the ground; ready to hear their proclamation, but when nothing happened I chanced a glance upwards. My parents were smiling at me holding out the paper for me to see. Where it was supposed to give a class number instead was written Luna’s Student. I’m not sorry to say that I fainted after that; it happens too often for me to care. Luna’s eyes had gotten progressively wider throughout the retelling and Twilight herself seemed somewhat shocked by the story. I wasn’t really focused on any of that though, I just made sure that Twilight continued to repeat everything that I was telling her; repeating the story as many times as would be necessary for the rest of the group to show up. I could only hope that they would get here soon though, I had no idea how long this plan would function; there wasn’t any good indicator that it would work indefinitely. Honestly I was still surprised it was working at all; it was probably the silliest and least thought out plan I had ever made, but when faced with overwhelming odds I suppose those are sometimes the best plans. After the fourth retelling I could tell that Twilight voice was starting to get tired; I wasn’t doing much better. It may not have been the most strenuous of things, but talking for an hour straight is not an easy task. Luckily it seems that won’t be an issue, I could hear the hoofsteps coming closer to us. unfortunately the moment that the other mares arrived was also the time at which Twilight and I had to pause for a breather; it seemed it was enough time for whatever was controlling Luna to regain control. “THIS WILL MAKE THINGS EASIER FOR US; ALL OF YOU ARE HERE! I CAN SIMPLY DESTROY YOU ALL AT ONCE. TIS A SHAME DAWN ISN’T HERE, I’D BE ABLE TO GET RID OF HIM AS WELL.” Well there was no way that the mares didn’t know that she had at least known me. I suppose it doesn’t really matter at this point; saving Luna from this parasite was far more important than any prank or revenge. “Okay girls I need you to use the Elements on Luna.” They all gave me a look like I was crazy I could only hope they would listen to me with that little revelation about my connection, but apparently the only thing that had made them think was that I was crazy for giving that command, “You do know how to use them don’t you.” “Of course we don’t silly, we never bothered to read the instruction manual page of the Elements a Harmony a Reference Guide, it had too many words.” “Oh vey, than what did you expect to do when you got here anyway.” I don’t know why, but Luna appeared to be content just watching us; I wasn’t going to complain about it in any case. “The books I read were all very vague on the subject only mentioning that a spark would activate them, but you stopped me before I could use a magic spark; why did you do that anyway.” She was giving the cutest look of inquisitiveness I’d seen since I’d seen it on Diamond, but I just shivered from the thought of what would have happened. “Let’s just say that the results would have been very gory.” I hoped they would leave it at that, “Well since there doesn’t seem to be any other ideas, I need you girls to just go and grab one Element each; the only thing I know for sure about how these things work is that it takes six mares.” I could only watch as they trotted towards the stone Elements, but as Twilight took a step forward Luna reacted. I don’t know why that is, but I held her back from moving any farther. It seems that just touching them was enough to have them turn back into their original form, because as soon as they had they were glowing with an incredible holy power. That wasn’t the end of it though; they seemed to be doing something else. I saw a flash of bright white light flare as soon as the mares brought their hooves into contact with the stones. For at least a few minutes I couldn’t see anything at all; however, when I could see again something very different stood before my eyes. The Elements were no longer where they had been, but in their place silver bands were wrapped around each of the mares legs; upon which were a depiction of their flank markings. I have no idea what it meant, but they were glowing with even more power than before. I heard a gasp to my left and turned to see that Twilight had seemingly also gained a set of these armbands; gold in comparison to the other mares silver. This was probably a good sign; especially since it seemed that Luna was trying to back away from us now. I could only hope that this would give my teacher back full command of her faculties. “Well girls fire when ready!” I could see their looks of incomprehension; I could swear that I heard crickets chirping in the background. “Dawn, we still don’t know how.” Yeah I probably should have realized that; I guess I was just hoping that it would be instinctive. You know, they would put them on and it would go into auto-fire mode and fire the mind control reversal ray or something. Too bad these artifacts didn’t come with an instruction manual or if they had at least read it if Pinkie was right... That was when the tail decided that it was taking everyone far too long to do something and slapped Twilight on the flank; she glared at me, but light still began to flow out from Twilight’s manacles. I guess my tail knew how things worked better than I did; I certainly didn’t know how that had worked. Maybe it had been something to do with Pinkie Pie or the combination of a power and control Unicorns; I honestly have no idea and right now I don’t care. When I have some more time I’ll run some experiments. “Oooohh it’s a power party yay!” Of course Pinkie Pie would be excited by this. The bright light began to build up around the six mares; each one a different color. Luna just stood there on the stage; as if waiting for the power to strike her, but I could see her trying to move closer to it. My teacher was still in there and this would bring her out of it. A bright white light precipitated the release of the rainbow energy beam. It began flying closer and closer to my teacher, but right as it was about to strike her it stopped. It was floating in midair right in front of her in the form of a ball. “MWHAHAH NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOT EVEN THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY.” I guess the energy decided that it didn’t like being insulted because it began to change form again into the shape of a boot. Still however, it merely continued to float a few inches from Luna. “Ah’m sorry this don’t make no sense no how. Why isn’t it doing anything.” It seemed that it was going to take Applejacks words as a reason to do something because it soon kicked Luna right in the head before flying out the window behind her. I could only gape at the sight; it was so far from what I had expected to happen that it just made no sense at all. I had expected it to maybe hit her full force and drive dark energy from her body, not simply knock her out. Wait it had knocked her out! I galloped up to my teacher to make sure that she was till all right. It wouldn’t do for something bad to have happened after what I had just happened. I put my head near her mouth; the sound of her breathing reassured me that she was alright. I was about to perform a more thorough inspection, but the sound of screaming outside the window drew my attention towards it. Looking outside I saw a sight that I wasn’t likely to forget for a long time to come; Celestia being chased by a rainbow colored boot. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to do that, but I wasn’t going to complain about it. I wish I had some way to capture this for posterity, I could have sent it to the newspaper; ruining her reputation would have been enough to satisfy my need for vengeance. Ah well, there was going to be a lot more time for me to get back at her for what she did. My thoughts of revenge ground to a halt when I began to feel a rather familiar sensation; one that I had felt back during my entrance exam. There was no way, absolutely np way that it was here. I’d need to find whatever could approximate it that well though and deal with it. I rushed out the room leaving one unconscious teacher and six surprised mares behind. Luna would be fine; this needed to be dealt with now. ___________ Author's Notes: I would really like feedback on this chapter so could you please take a moment to comment on it after reading? Thank you all very much.