//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: In Your Town // by SilverAlchemist //------------------------------// Eye twitch. Nose itch. Feathers ruffled. That was great, Pinkie thought, it meant their group could rest once they made it to the top of this hill. Or that she was just itchy, she was still getting used to the wing-based Pinkie Sense (hehe, Wingie Sense). And it was definitely time for a rest, after walking miles through a remote corner of Equestria to a mysterious destination surrounded by grassy hills and unsurpassable mountains and other tall objects that half of the Elements couldn't fly past and the other half wouldn't do so great around either. "Girls, we'll stop on top of the hill and take a break!", Pinkie exclaimed, somehow turning her head a full one-eighty degrees to look at the rest of the group. With another pony, the act might have been horrifying; with Pinkie Pie, the act was just Pinkie Pie. "Finally! I'm beat!", declared Rainbow Dash, which was odd. The prismatic pegasus looked exhausted but not hurt. Unless... "Dashie, I didn't know you were a beet! What's it like being a vegetable?" "Ah think the only vegetable here is Twilight", Applejack snickered, looking at the purple unicorn, happily dozing away on the wagon the earth pony was dragging along, surrounded by the dozens of notebooks she'd filled out during the night and the travel bags she’d packed in Ponyville. "Applejack, that's not very nice", Fluttershy glanced, worried, at her purple friend. "She spent all night preparing plans for what we'd find out here." "And she was a dear to do that, darling, but she might have taken it too far." Levitating one of the notebooks toward her, Rarity opened it to a random page and started reading out loud. "Modular Subplan 345A - In case we need to camp out around the area we’re being sent to, have Rarity construct a small hut around us with telekinesis and the artificing materials in emergency supply bag six. See Diagram 182 - 187. Subsubplan i - Ward the house against meteors. Subsubplan ii - Surround the house with a moat. Subsubplan iii - Light the house... on fire?" The rest of the page was an illegible mess, the natural result of 2 a.m. hornwriting. "I'm pancake..." Twilight added her two cents, apparently feeling left out of the conversation. Satisfied that the crunch of grass beneath her hooves was no longer the only sound she’d hear, Pinkie turned her head another one-eighty degrees, just in time for her to realize that she had arrived on top of the hill and was about to walk off it, nearly gliding into the town below. And speaking of the town... She heard a shocked gasp next to her from Rarity. "Oh my. Rainbow Dash, it seems like you might get to fight a monster after all." The town in the valley below could have been a typical Equestrian village, once, with a variety of colorful buildings that would look like a Beakson Pollock painting from above. Now it was completely empty - although they could see almost the entire town from their high vantage point, not a single pony could be seen on the streets. There were long scars and holes across the earth, bits of buildings falling off and crumbling, and a seemingly untamed snowstorm thundering above the town. "Nah, don't look like it. Some parts of that place are more dilapitated than my great-uncle Fritter's dentures. Whatever's going on there, part of it's that there's nobody paying for upkeep. The buildings look like some of the old abandoned farms the Acres bought out." “And that storm’s totally not wild”, Rainbow Dash said. “It’s near Weather Factory standard for thunderstorms. Maybe. Can’t really remember my pegasus academy courses too well, I haven’t needed them for ages.” “So a pony did all this? Well, an evil pony still counts as a monster, riiiiigggghhhhttttt? I mean, I thought Nightmare Moon was pretty monstery. So if Luna counted as a monster, then maybe we’re going to fight… a lunatic!” Nopony laughed at that, probably because Pinkie’d made the same pun at least twelve times in the past month. She’d have to find some new moon-based puns soon. “Maybe we should look through the town tomorrow?”, Fluttershy asked. “We can wait until all of us are rested. And awake.” “Well, then, it seems that I’ll be using Twilight’s house plans after all. Could you girls help me set up?” A chorus of “sure” was the response Rarity got, and most of the mares walked down the hill’s slope to find a flat enough piece of land to fit Diagram 185. Pinkie Pie, however, stayed in place. Perching on the hilltop, the pink pony princess previewed a puzzling precarious-looking peculiar town. She saw nopony, but why did she feel as if she was being watched? As if somepony was eyeing the hourglass on her flank? Eh, she mentally shrugged, and then physically shrugged because she might as well, it was probably one of those Pinkie Sense things that only made sense after the fact. For now, she’d just sleep, and get up bright and early tomorrow to tackle whatever evilstery - mysterevil? - awaited. After all, her future self had never led her wrong before! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long ago, in the magical land of Equestria, two regal sisters protected the innocent and brought peace and harmony throughout the land. The elder princess, who was unmatched in sheer power and in kindness, would travel everywhere that needed help, taming and defeating monsters. The younger, who was brilliant and subtle, would show her little ponies how to escape their darkest fears and achieve their greatest dreams. But the younger sister soon grew jealous. The elder won acclaim across the land for her heroic deeds, while her own involvement was barely remembered by lucid dreamers and mad mages. The younger sister soon decided that if she wouldn't be acknowledged for helping her little ponies achieve their dreams, she'd be feared for making them live their nightmares. One fateful night, she began casting a wicked ritual to cause every living thing in Equestria to sleep forever, trapped in the worst nightmare their own minds could create. The elder pleaded with her, but it was too late - the younger sister had become the evil Nightmare Moon. Celestia had no choice but to banish her sister for a thousand years. A thousand years later, Luna was freed from her madness with the help of six exceptional mares. A wealthy investor from humble origins, the Element of Honesty. A minor noble and major bureaucrat, the Element of Friendship. A schoolteacher with a secret, the Element of Kindness. A unicorn artificer, the Element of Generosity. A young athlete and aerial guard, the Element of Loyalty. And of course, the Princess's personal student, the Element of Magic, a mare with spacetime-bending abilities that baffled even her mentor. This is not that story. This is about what happened after.