First 1k words of rewrite of Guardian · 7:08pm Jul 25th, 2015
Not really spoilers. It's literally the opening scene XD
EQUESTRIA
FOUR DAYS BEFORE GRAND GALLOPING GALACelestia’s star shined brightly down upon the land of Equestria, its licking heat driving away the cool grasp of night. The star’s life sustaining light warmed the fertile soil and tempted the local wildlife out of their slumber. The nation’s inhabitants, ponies of all sizes, shapes, and types, greeted the warm and sunny day with a fervorous joy. The ponies went about their daily activities with an upbeat tempo in their motions, excitement pouring off of them in anticipation of the scheduled event in their beloved capital city.
Months of planning had been spent in preparation for the Gala, the final few days leading up to the ball having been used to ship in and assemble the items necessary for the celebration to go off without a hitch. Even now, the kitchen’s ovens in the Royal Castle were roaring hot as not only the nation’s top chefs, but those from around the globe tediously tended to their tasks, creating the finest culinary works. Public workers were on the clock 24/7, cleaning up the city and decorating the streets with flowers, banners, and other celebratory fashions.
The castle’s staff hurriedly unpacked the new shipments and rushed about the smooth granite flooring, desperately trying to meet their deadline in four days. In the middle of the semi-organized chaos stood one solid figure. The purple alicorn held a commanding yet approachable presence as she oversaw the Gala’s preparations. A small purple dragon with green spikes stood next to her, checklist in talon. The two were in synch with each other as they directed the flow of ponies, assisting by keeping everypony on schedule and minimizing accidents.
The purple alicorn, known as Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, stepped clear as a large refrigerated crate was pushed past, several unicorns carefully maneuvering their package through the bustling foyer. Twilight spied a stray towel on the floor in front of them, a slippery danger on the slick floor if one of the cargo ponies stepped on it. Shooting a quick burst of magic, the towel was moved out of the way seconds before disaster.
‘Twilight Sparkle, savior of ice ponies everywhere.’ Twilight indulged in her inner humor for a brief moment longer before turning to her dragon assistant. “Spike, update on the checklist?”
The faithful dragon’s eyes scrawled across the paper from top to bottom quickly, biting his tongue in careful consideration. “We’re on schedule Twilight.” He watched as the large crate disappeared down a hallway before marking the list with a quill, “One ice pony, check.”
Twilight smiled and rubbed her hoof on Spike’s head, “That’s my number one assistant! Keep this up and this will be the best Gala yet!”
Spike pulled away from Twilight’s hoof and straightened his head spike. “The other Galas weren't so bad.”
Twilight froze, one of her pupils shrinking while her eye twitched. A small curl popped into existence on her mane. “‘Not, so, bad’?” She turned her horrifying gaze onto Spike, the small drake backpedaling as the crazed mare revealed her inner beast.
Spike started sweating bullets as he lifted a hesitant claw. “Uh, Twilight? Remember what Princess Cadance said?”
A glint of intelligence sparked in Twilight’s eyes, the mare’s demeanor returning to normal as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath and held a foreleg to her chest. She released her air and the pent up stress inside of her with it. “Thanks Spike, I can get a little carried away at times.”
Spike chuckled nervously as he wiped his brows in relief, “Heh-heh, no problem Twilight. It happens to the best of us.”
Twilight nodded in agreement, “Well said Spike. Now, we’ll have to place the rope barriers-,” Twilight paused as she opened her eyes and noticed the surrounding ponies staring at her, having witnessed the earlier spectacle. Her eyes darted back and forth before a nervous energy build up inside of her. “Uh, carry on,” she waved a hoof at them.
Spike stepped up next to Twilight as the crowd of ponies began working again, reaching up to pat her comfortingly on the side. “Relax Twilight. Nothing’s going to go wrong. You have multiple failsafes in place, the Guard on standby, and everything timed to the last second!” He put his arm down before returning to his checklist. “Honestly, anything short of Celestia herself calling it off couldn’t stop this from happening.”
Twilight ran her magic through her mane to comb the curls out of it before sighing. “You’re right Spike. I have nothing to worry about.” She took a step forward before a stray thought ran across her mind. “Wait… You said that only Celestia herself could stop the Gala.”
Spike’s muzzle scrunched up in confusion. “Yeah? What about it?” He looked up in time to see the gears turning in Twilight’s head. He lifted an eyebrow, “I don’t think Celestia would call off the Grand Galloping Gala, Twilight.”
The alicorn perked up. “That’s the thing Spike! She normally wouldn’t, but what if she did!?” She gasped, “What if the real Celestia was kidnapped and an imposter crashed the Gala!?”
Spike groaned in frustration. “You’re not serious Twi?”
Twilight lifted Spike in her magic and held him in front of her, face to face. “No! Don’t you see Spike? It happened with Cadance, it could happen with Celestia!” The curls she had combed out less than a minute ago regained their foothold, proudly displaying their victory. Twilight’s breathing quickened with worry. “It could have already happened! Come on Spike! We have to go check up on Celestia!” Spike yelped as Twilight took off at a full gallop, weaving recklessly between the staff ponies.
Twilight would indeed soon realize how silly she was, but not without consequence. Startling the Solar Empress while she was hard at work writing up new documents never did end well for the poorly flame resistant material. However, even with all of this happening, the day still continued on normally for the citizens of Equestria. As far as they were concerned, nothing could go wrong. After all, what would dare interrupt the well oiled plans of Equestria’s most notorious planner and expect to get away unscathed?
So? What do you guys think? Good intro for the beginning of the first chapter? If you haven't figured it out yet, the story is going to have relatively major changes to it. I'll still have the main events in it, but I'm going to go about everything in a drastically different manner. I've thought long and hard folks and I've made what I believe to be a good decision with experience backing me up.
I really should work on RotG and Nightmare's Weapon though too XD Not just this.
Hope yall are doing well :)
With regards, Req out~
Cant wait for this. Gonna be fun.
this'll be interesting. So the revised edition takes place after season 4?
3269003 Yeah, that way it should confuse new readers less. And there are more developed characters in MLP. However, shifting over to after season 4 shouldn't change anything too much.
Let's see how this rewrite will be
3269008 ah. well then. let chaos ensue
Good job
I like it, the narration style seems more fluid compared to the old version 
I guess that one of the major changes in the story will be the inclusion in the story of the Friendship Castle, considering that the Library was destroyed by Tirek (a thing that I've considered more then once in my story)
3270833 Yeah, getting rid of the library and replacing it would be for the best. I might as well write as up to date as possible without actually ripping up and pasting the canon as I like as that would just be confusing.