//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: My little pony: Soul of gold // by Zanaffer //------------------------------// In the beginning there was only chaos, then from the chaos emerged Gaia, after Gaia came Uranus her husband, together they gave birth to the twelve Titans. However Uranus was a cruel father and husband so Gaia conspired with her children to punish Uranus, only the youngest, Cronos accepted the task and so he defeated his father and took his place as ruler. Cronos however became as much as a tyrant as his father, and an ever worse father, being warned by Uranus after his defeat that he would also fall to one of his offspring, Cronos sought to escape this destiny by devouring his children as they were born. Rhea, Cronos's wife, tired of offering her children hid the youngest from her husband replacing him with a rock with was devoured whole by Cronos, when this child grew he disguised himself as a servant to approach Cronos and gave him a potion that made him vomit out his immortal siblings and subsequently defeated him, he was the god known as Zeus. After defeating his father and the Titans , Zeus imprisoned him in the deepest part of Tartarus for all time and ruled the world along with his brothers and sisters the Olympians. “And that is the story Cronos as we know it.” All ponies listened to Aioros's story in silence carefully taking in every detail, none notes than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, both alicorns remained silent even after Aioros had finished his story, neither the bearers or the two golden saints dared to interrupt their meditations. “I see.” Princess Celestia finally broke the heavy silence. “Long ago, even before the time of the unification of ponykind, Luna and I lived with our parents, our mother Gaia who gave shape to mountains and valleys like a beautiful painting,and our father Uranus who shaped the skies like a music score, those were, good times.” Twilight desperately resisted the urge to take notes, any information prior to the three pony kingdoms was incredibly rare, but this information was personal, Twilight doubted that the princesses had ever told this to anypony. “Then suddenly one day, they were gone, and we never saw them again.” Celestia's face had gone from nostalgic to saddened as she revealed her past to all present. “We never knew what had happened to them, until now that is.” Luna continued after her sister. “Poor father, he was strict but I cannot imagine him as a tyrant, and to be defeated by his own offspring.” “You were always his favorite, you and he are so much alike.” Celestia and Luna shared a warm glance while Aioros and Aioria shared a worried glance, Aioros had been purposefully vague and brief when going about Uranus's defeat, it would be uncomfortable to say the least to give a detailed explanation to his loving daughters. “Wait a minute.” Rainbow Dash said sparing the brothers further scrutiny. “Didn’t you say this Cronos dude is in Tartarus?” She asked to witch Aioros nodded. “Then what are we waiting for, let’s go kick his butt.” She said enthusiastically. “it’s not so simple Rainbow Dash.” Princess Celestia cautioned her. “Tartarus is a vast realm, we have been using it as a prison for centuries and still we know very little of it, the news that it was being used as a prison for one of our,“brothers”, only signals how little we know of it.” “Wait, do you have direct access to Tartarus?” Aioria asked surprised. Princess Luna promptly answered. “Yes there exist in Equestria a portal that leads to Tartarus, it is located inside a cave in a volcanic mountain and it is guarded at all time by Cerberus the three headed dog, also there exist a spell to open a portal directly, but very few have the knowledge or the power required to use it.” “I see, the same way our world is connected to Hades your world is connected to Tartarus, then it is possible that our world's may be indirectly connected by way of these two underworlds.” Aioria pondered the possibility while Twilight scribbled madly in a scroll. “That may be little brother but that is not important right now.” Aioros said. “and in regards to miss Dash's idea, it is most likely we will find nothing even if we search all of Tartarus.” “How are you so certain?” Celestia asked curious to his certainty. “From what we’ve learned recently Cronos has always acted from behind the scenes never revealing himself, but today his agent attempted a full frontal assault in order to take control, that means something has changed, I believe he may have already escaped his prison and now plans to aggressively pursue the conquering of this world.” The severity of his words reached all the gathered ponies, even Pinkie Pie looked a little deflated and Fluttershy was holding back tears. “Our best bet would be to strengthen our defenses and wait for the enemy to reveal themselves, then we attack.” “Well, yeah OK no problem, I'm sure the princesses can take care of this Cronos guy in ten seconds flat.” Rainbow Dash quipped and her friends nodded in agreement, except Twilight. “I’m afraid we won't be of much use in battle as we would hope to be Rainbow Dash.” Said Celestia. “Huh? Why not?” Rainbow Dash asked not quite understanding why. “T'is because most of our magic is being continuously used maintaining the sun and the moon in place at all times.” Lunar explained. “The amount of magic we have at our disposal is insufficient for a long term confrontation, that is why we have relied so heavily on the Elements of Harmony and its bearers.” Princess Luna's statement was met with looks of disbelief from the bearers, after all they all believed that the princesses would always come to the rescue “Twilight, you know this to be true right?” Princess Celestia addresses her former student who she had previously entrusted her magic before. “It's true.” Twilight said not raising her eyes to meet her friends. “When I had to raise the sun, it was, difficult, even with the magic of four alicorns it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.” Princess Celestia smiled kindly yet sadly at her fellow princess. “That is the main reason we hid our magic from Tirek, once he realized the burden we carry he would have immediately cut the link between our magic and the celestial bodies once again leaving then to go aimlessly astray dooming us all, it was fortunate that you could use the power of the Crystal Tree to defeat him before that.” Twilight did not feel relieved at princess Celestia's praise. This revelation left in its wake a lingering feeling of uncertainty, the princesses were always viewed as the epitome of power, knowing that they would be unable to provide assistance was a great blow for the morale. “If I may ask, what are the Elements of Harmony?, you’ve mentioned them before.” Aioria asked the Princesses. “The Elements of Harmony are very powerful magic artifacts that exist in this world, each one represents one of the core virtues that we hold most important in Equestria, we have used them before to defeat various threats to Equestria before, as a matter of fact, Twilight and her friends are the current bearers of the elements.” Princess Celestia explained. “But we don’t have the elements anymore.” Twilight cut in rather drastically. “We returned them to the crystal tree and now we can’t get them back.” With that final comment the mood had gone completely somber, it was a shame, Aioria thought, such powerfully artifacts might have been useful in this situation, that was probably the reason they were targeted as well. “But what about that super-duper mane-raising wibblly-wobbly power-up we used to beat that meaney pants Tirek.” Pinkie Pie said while doing weird motions along with her words, Aioria and Aioros felt confused by the pink pony’s antics but the rest of the ponies recovered from their gloomy mood. “Hey yeah, we can use that.” Rainbow Dash jumped to the air with renewed glee. “I totally forgot we could do that, if any of those clowns show up again all we gotta do is go “rainbow force” on them and *pow*, we win.” “Wait just a second there shugarcube, who said you could go on 'n just name it “rainbow” sumth'n or another?” “C'mon AJ, any name I give it is at least 20% cooler than anything anypony can come up with, especially apple whatever.” Applejack shot Rainbow a glare. “Uhm, I think it sounds nice.” Came a reserved comment from Fluttershy. “Ohh! I still remember how fabulous my mane looked back then, and my coat was so shiny and glossy why I can already foresee a whole new clothes line based on them.” The amiable chatter went on with the ponies going back and forth generally with comments on how great this “rainbow force” was, only one pony remained skeptical. “But we don't even know how it works.” Twilight interjected. “We haven't been able to use it again ever since we beat Tirek and we don’t know anything about how or why it works.” Twilight’s pessimistic rant threatened to bring back the gloomy mood to the room, they were all so silent that Fluttershy's voice reached all of them effortlessly. “Uhmm, what about the castle, there may be clues in there.” She said, at this remark the gears in Twilight's head began turning. “That's it! The castle was made from the crystal tree, there may be something there we haven't found yet that can help us, Fluttershy you’re a genius.” The butter yellow pegasus blushed and retreated behind her mane at the praise. “We need to go back at once and start searching.” Twilight got on her hooves and galloped straight towards the exit forgetting about everything else. “Twilight wait!” Princess Celestia called to Twilight in alarm. “It's not safe to go alone, we don't know when the enemy will strike again.” Twilight skidded to a halt remembering her impotence in the attack on the castle just moments earlier. “Don't worry.” The golden armored pegasus chimed in. “We can assist you if they ever show up again, I believe we are capable of facing this enemy and protect you as well. Aioros said, Aioria who stood at his side smiled an nodded in agreement. “If we may ask , why dost thou so readily agree to fight for us.?” Princess Luna asked the stallion wearily, the rest of the ponies straightened up curious to what he would answer. Aioros smiled slightly. “It is the duty of Athena's saints to defend the peace of the world, however I would be lying if I said there wasn't a reason behind it.” He explained. “It was beneficial to us that our enemy was called “Pride” and not “Prudence”, he revealed a great deal of information during his gloating, and from that I can deduce that he plans to raise an army and use said army to get revenge on Zeus and all of the gods, that would of course include Athena.” Princess Celestia approached the brothers up close towering over them, digging inside their souls with her intense magenta eyes, Aioria relived his first meeting with her and he could see that his brother fared no better being stared down by a goddess. Finally a smile former in her lips and her expression softened. “Brave Knights from a faraway land we humbly accept your assistance in this time of need.” She said giving a courtly bow to both saints. In a panicked haste both kneeled before Princess Celestia who giggled amusedly. “Sir Lightning Bolt, Sir Golden Arrow, Equestrian is in your debt.” Aioria intended to object at being called that pseudonym again but his protest was drowned by a loud detonation followed by a rain of confetti and the cheers from the six mares present in the roroom. After the meeting Aioria and the bearers returned to Ponyville (this time by train) and headed straight for the castle, it had been agreed that Aioria would protect Princess Twilight and her friends while Aioros stayed in Canterlot to protect princesses Luna and Celestia. Aioria would have preferred to have more time to spend with his brother, but his obligations as a golden saint came first After hours of searching the castle from top to bottom with nothing to show for their effort they all retreated to the main room to rest, this room had six large chairs marked with the cutie mark for each of its intended occupant arranged in a circle with an emblem of a crystal starburst in the center, and a small chair next to Twilight belonging to Spike, the girls began taking their seats tired from the day's activities, Spike was fast asleep in his mini throne while Aioria stood at Twilight's left. “So, let's go trough this one more time.” Aioria said trying to assimilate what he had been told about the castle. “Ughhh! We've been around this like a million times Lightning.” Rainbow said in annoyance. “We found all six keys, defeated Tirek and got this sweet castle, end of story. “I can't believe we've been up and down the castle all afternoon and we haven't come across anything usefull, all of Equestria is in danger, why would the map want us to sit in a castle in Ponyville, it doesn’t make any sense” Twilight complained in her seat. “Twilight dear relax, it's only the first day, why we've barely even covered a small part of the castle, I don't think we've ever all sat around this table before today.” Rarity said in an attempt to console her friend. “She’s right sugarcube, 'sides 'taint like we're gonna stumble on some big magical thingamajjiger on our first try.” Applejack said just as Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie sat at their seats, unbeknownst to them as each one took their seat the emblem on the top and the cutie mark of the respective mare began to glow faintly, as Rainbow and Pinkie sat down the glow intensified finally catching their attention, then from the floor crystals began pooping out from the base of the seats towards the center where they collided with each other piling up and growing even larger. By the end of this event there was in the center if the room, a round table, and on the table a map, a very vivid and detailed map of all of Equestria. Spike stirred, awaking from his nap looking around at the slack jawed faces of his friends, finally noticing the map he said. “Is that new? I like it.”