The roaring of the rivers, the raging wind, and the menacing clouds above me did not help settle my fear. After the destruction of Ponyville, I galloped with grandpa, heading towards one of the trains that was evacuating ponies. We then got on the bustling and crowded ride for many long hours that felt like a millenia. I noticed that in the train, many ponies were tense and wide eyed. Some of them were dulled and seemed depressed. I saw a pony come onto the train with a hoof missing. He had bandages wrapped all around his withers and neck, while he also had a dark expression. Many of the ponies had gone through the same tragedy that beheld me.
The train passed the strange purple tower that stood in ruins, which still looked dazzling even through the rising smoke and grey clouds. It seemed almost like I could touch it. I reached out my hoof towards the mysterious tower and it shined with a brilliant light that was almost blinding from my view. It then quickly faded as I blinked from the dazing flash. I quickly glanced around and saw that no pony had taken a look towards the tower and the same expression was still resting on their faces.
“What’s wrong, Hollow?” grandpa asked with a calming face.
I relaxed my shoulders and sighed.
“I don’t know. I think I’m just tired,” I replied.
He turned away and pointed towards the tower that was now behind us in the distance.
“That tower right there belonged to the Elements of Harmony.”
When he rested his hoof on the metal floor I said, “I’ve actually never learned much of the Elements of Harmony. I only know that it belonged to six ponies and had great magic.”
“Oh, Clarity hasn’t told you?”
“No, Mom only usually talks about the princesses and villains of Equestria,” I answer.
“Oh, well the ponies that the six elements of harmony belonged to were Twilight Sparkle that possessed the element of Magic, Fluttershy that possessed the element of Kindness, Rarity that possessed the element of Generosity, Rainbow Dash that possessed the element of Loyalty, Applejack that possessed the element of Honesty, and Pinkie Pie that possessed the element of Laughter. They drove away many evils of the past such as Nightmare Moon and Discord.”
“What happened to the elements after? They clearly didn’t drive Tirek and Sombra away when they bursted through the gates of Tartarus and proudly announced their loud and evil goals for the future,” I said, surprised from my frustrated tone.
“Settle down. It was told that the elements of harmony were discharged from their magic and vanished along with the princesses.”
“Very descriptive,” I said, again still surprised by my voice.
Grandpa frowned from the retort and continued to stare off towards the now disappearing magical tower of towers.
Ok, maybe I'm being too crude, but still literally all of the strongest magic wielders just mysteriously vanishing from the face of Equestria? It’s stupid since they have enough power to manipulate the sun and moon itself, and even if they intentionally disappeared they should’ve been smart enough to figure out the crisis coming after.
The next grueling hours of despair led me to fall asleep.
I came to the same train that I fell asleep in but it was completely empty and the sky was a starry black.
I looked around to find a duo of ponies.
One of them had a bright, wavy and colorful mane with magenta eyes. She was very tall for a pony and had a white coat that seemed to never get dirty. Another stood next to the white glamour, looking completely opposite. The mare had a indigo coat with the same wavy elegant hair as the other, who looked midget size compared to the white giant.
I saw two faded figures that stood close to the two but I couldn’t figure out the details of them.
“It’s nice to see another pony I can reach out to,” the indigo pony said.
Suddenly the world shifted to a white backdrop that made the milk colored pony almost seem to blend in if not for her mane and eyes.
“Who are you?” I blinked cautiously trying not to strain my eyes to see the white mare.
“Oh! Silly me! You can’t see sister very well, now can you?”
The indigo mare’s….horn glowed with cyan and the background now came to a spectacular view of Equestria.
“What the-where are we?!” I rapidly glanced around while trying to collect my bearings.
“Why, I’m Luna! The Princess of the Moon, and this here is my sister, Celestia, the Princess of the Sun! You are asleep right now and in a dream. We were able to connect with you after a long time,” the night pony said.
“Lulu! I thought that when we introduced ourselves, we would say our individual intros!” The white mare said, looking annoyed.
My jaw hung when I heard Luna introduce them both as “princess”.
“N-N-N-No... You don’t mean that you both are the...goddesses of day and night? The ones who vanished hundreds of years ago along with both princess Twilight and Cadence?!”
Now it was their turn to hang their jaw.
“YOU MEAN IT’S BEEN MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS!?” They both screamed with a voice that echoed throughout most of the land.
“No but this couldn’t mean that we’ve lost track, have we?” Princess Luna frantically said.
“Well to be fair, we haven’t been in contact with another pony for quite a while, so it’s understandable that it’s been this long,” Celestia imposed.
“But it should’ve been only 2 YEARS! What happened?!” Luna replied.
They kept at the surprised conversation while I thought about the things I just heard and saw. I still was frustrated about how they vanished but seeing the sight and radiance of them made the thought disappear momentarily. But then the thought came rushing back in my head.
“So you mean to tell me that you are the strongest and most powerful magic users in Equestria AND you control both the sun and the moon without a sweat, but you can’t tell the time when you’re in somewhere-land?” I said with the same frustrated tone as before.
They both stared at me with wide eyes and then drooped their heads low with curled ears.
“We didn’t want to abandon our roles but we had no choice.” Celestia said.
“‘We had no choice’ my rear end! Do you know what we had to go through! All that suffering just because of your stupid decisions” I said surging with dominance. Yet I also felt tears welling up at the corners of my eyes and had to force them to draw back.
I was again surprised by my frustrated tone. I didn’t know why I cared about this since it was a long long time ago and was just part of history. Yet I started to feel the sudden want or need of having the princesses after the attack of the pirates.
“We had to make the choice of either going to war or having to save our country. When we sealed Tirek and Sombra in the vase, we knew that they would find a way to come back out and by that time, we would still be vulnerable for all the magic that we infused into the vase. So, in our thinking, we made the decision to seal ourselves with the vase so that our presence would forever drawback the evil.” Luna explained.
“You mean to say that you both SEALED yourselves? How are you gonna ever get out?” I yelled.
“Well that’s why we’ve been looking for a pony to get in contact with.” Luna said.
“We intend for you to go out to search for the elements of harmony. We believe that with their power, we’ll be able to create a rift in which we can banish them to from Equestria. However, when we sought the elements of harmony during the time Sombra and Tirek were unleashed, they did not appear. My sister and I have searched all over Equestria for them but we can not seem to locate them.” Celestia continued.
“We also have another problem, it seems that Tirek and Sombra have an ally outside of the vase so we are afraid that whoever this is will seek to free them both.” Luna progressed.
“Wait, there was an atta-” I was interrupted (ALWAYS) by what do you think? An explosion.
Both princess Luna and princess Celestia had begun to vanish out of thin air. I stumbled backwards because of the rumbling and managed to hear the last words of the indigo pony.
“Expect us the next time you sleep, farewell for now!”
I woke up from the jumping and screeching of the train.
“W-What? Did I miss anything?”
“Quick, son! Those pirates are demolishing the back of the train!”
I panicked when he told about the pirates. I didn’t want to see the death that would occur the same in ponyville.
He quickly stood me up from my most comfortable seat and brung me to the front cart. In the section were many ponies that were crowded together in an uncomfortable position and the cart seemed too tight to fit even the tiniest speck.
“There’s not a lot of space in here.” I pointed out, swimming in sweat.
“I’ve experienced MUCH worse.” grandfather pointed out while emphasizing much.
I squeezed myself in between the crowd and tried to make myself as small as possible. Looking around, the room was only a bit bigger than Burn’s room which made me frown from the thought. I saw fillies that were smaller or bigger than me and around maybe 30 to 40 adults.
The train suddenly jolted and the whole place turned sideways where the walls were now the ground. Many of the ponies lay on the floor in very uncomfortable positions.
I stood up to be greeted by grandpa. He checked me up and down without a word and ushered me to the light that peeked from the open cart.
I clambered to see piles of metal and many chunks of fire laying on the ground below. The whole train was tipped over and many of the hot coals spilled out to catch exposed wood on fire. Down the long train I saw ponies sprawled along the ground. I sighed in relief to see that all seemed to be alive.
Then, a hissing, giant fireball suddenly gathered in the air and launched itself towards the grounded crowd.
Surprisingly, my grandpa bolted out of the cart and his whole body began to emit an aura that was a deep orange. A stomp of his hoof and the aura broke like an explosion and was carried throughout the whole area. A flash and he vanished only to reappear again where the sprawled group was. The aura came back and was then instead, redirected towards the ball of fire. When the light reached it, it wrapped around the fireball and the flames swirled until it flung itself towards the sky.
He was sweating all over and his body trembling. The group that witnessed his magical power seemed half in awe and half in delight.
He then sped towards me and stopped a few feet away.
“Come quick! There’s no time to lose! They will be here soon.” He said.
“Who? What?” I asked, confusingly.
“Don’t worry about the others, I’ve made a barrier that’ll last them for a couple days to repair the train. Unlike them, we need to be in a hurry.” My grandpa explained.
Another fireball appeared in the sky, much bigger but much farther than the last one. It then hurled itself towards us but then a orange dome appeared and blocked out the opposing menace.
“Ok let’s go. I’m not ready to be burn in the flaming depths of Tartarus.” I said, feeling the color drain from my muzzle and face.
“Hollow!” My grandpa yelled, annoyingly. He started to gallop into the nearby forest.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it! Watch my mouth.”
Another flaming destruction appeared in the sky and again, launched itself towards the train which was intercepted by the dome. After that the sequence starts over again and again, as the sun now began to engulf the sky with an orange glow.