//------------------------------//
// Ordinary Days 1 
// Story: The League of Harmony 
// by Kinni 
//------------------------------//

Twilight woke up relatively early, at 06:00 AM. At first she was confused, not seeing what she expected, but then Twilight remembered that she had moved and was now living in the city of Ponyville. Yawning, she got up and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Channeling power from her magic stones to use a telekinesis spell, Twilight grabbed the ingredients and tools that had already been previously prepared and made some food for herself. After eating, Twilight felt ready to take on the day.

Going back to her room, she activated the special formation that had been set up the previous day. It made a connection with a similar formation on Canterlot Castle, and teleported the work of that day towards Twilight.

As the first court mage, Twilight Sparkle was the highest authority on the matters of magic in Equestria. As such, all of her work was decidedly of the foremost importance. She started going through it with the ease of long practice. There were records of a runic formation designed to be used as part of the safety protocols of a particularly important dam, many other mages had already gone over it, but the importance of the project warranted Twilight to give a final check.

The mage analyzed the working, paying special attention to the power sources. Then she went over the data of the region, the location of the dam, the environmental analyses, biological analyses and the analyses of the magical traits of the region. She made a few simulations on her mind about how they would work together, and then used magic (again using her magic stones) to perform a few final simulations.

Satisfied, she gave her approval. Another case was the report of the analysis of a piece of the magical formulas inscribed upon an ancient magical artifact previously used by Grogar the Third. The research had been deemed far too dangerous to allow most researchers access to the artifact, and too time-consuming for the few researchers who could be considered trustworthy enough to handle on their own, so it was decided to separate the formulas into thousands of pieces so that each individual researcher did not have access to the full picture of what they were analyzing, and Twilight had the job of putting everything together.

She read the report and made a few notes of her own, mostly related to conceptual transposition, a type of magic so deep and difficult to understand that few mages in the world had the background necessary to understand her notes. The creator of that artifact was certainly a monster, but his genius couldn't be denied. 

Another interesting thing were the most recent reports of the development of the anti-cutie mark removal spell. Twilight had developed the original version but the power drain was excessive on any pony who wasn't an alicorn, so the research group was trying to simplify it. Apparently, they had managed to create a series of runes that could be used to extend an area of effect protection, but the power drain was enough to make it unfeasible for anything except protecting critical areas so far. And so it went until it was finally time for lunch, with Twilight using the same magical formation as before to send the work she had already done back to the proper place.

Then, she went to the dining room, where Spike had already made the food.

“Good day.” She greeted him, in the same tired fashion she did in days following late night superhero excursions.

Spike answered her, and then the two fell into silence for a bit as they started on their respective meals.

“Anything interesting at work today?” Spike asked eventually.

“Same old. No emergency reports today, the interesting ongoing projects are still interesting and ongoing, no unexpected surprises on the usual projects… How about you? How goes the magic research?”

"Ah,” He smiled “I actually got some results. Adding a spiral matrix to the combination of energy fluxes actually makes the kinetic energy transference of spells smoother and easier to control!”

“Really? Then this means that...” And so the two started a lively conversation about spells variations using a combination of dragon and unicorn magic.

Twilight’s Gift was actually one that was shared with Spike, just as she could draw dragon magic from him, he could draw unicorn magic from her. This meant that Spike was in a fairly unique position of being able to help Twilight with the magic she had to do as Dragon Mage. The concepts they talked about weren’t that complicated, but being able to use a combination of dragon and unicorn magic was.

After all, dragon-pony hybrids were rare.

They talked while they were eating and even kept talking for a bit afterwards. Twilight didn’t need to talk about the things that had happened the previous day, since Celestia had already informed him, but Twilight still talked a bit about her impressions of the other heroines and about her excitement for today’s meeting.

Eventually they went back to their own things, Twilight working on the rest of the things she had to look over that day. By the time she finished, it was 2:13 PM. She usually did finish around this time, so this was nothing abnormal. Celestia wouldn't allow her to receive too much daily work, since it could hinder her heroic activities.

Everything done, she sent the rest of her work and proceeded to do something else that was usual for her, but most ponies did not know about. It started with doing the whole process to remove her magical seals and putting on her uniform.

After that, she used magic to draw a special teleport formation. It was special because it connected to a similar teleport formation in a place that very few ponies had the permission to enter.

Going into the formation, she activated it and it only took a few moments for the transport to be completed. The teleport formation she had drawn on her home was erased by the very magic used in the teleport, just as intended.

Her destination was a specific point within the catacombs under Canterlot. The whole area was restricted and under all sorts of anti-teleportation wards, but the special formation had been made in a way that could bypass those wards, so ponies with the appropriate security clearances (very few) could be able to teleport directly inside in case of emergency.

But Dragon Mage wasn't there because of an emergency, but because this was also the place she used to train.

The heroine walked through a few corridors until she got into a familiar area. It was far from the important places, it was empty and it was big enough to do some good testing. There were lots of scars on the floor, walls and ceiling from previous training sessions.

She got in the middle of it and stopped for a bit, trying to bring her concentration to the highest possible level before starting. And then she began.

For the first few minutes, Twilight went through some of her karate katas, making sure her body was in good condition and she could do them smoothly. Over time she accelerated her movements more and more, pushing her body to the limits. And the next step was the use of magic.

Twilight went through her standard spell arsenal, mixing them with the movements of the katas. She knew a lot of spells, but to simplify things and not get too bogged down on the options in the middle of a battle, Twilight kept a small list of spells for most situations she practiced to the point of being able to use them near-instinctively and that she always turned to first.

There were the standard blasting and shielding spells, which were combat spells modified to use big amounts of dragon magic to become stronger and faster. Those spells were very versatile in terms of power and other traits, and were the bread and butter of most of her combat options. For mobility, she had the dragon wings spell and her haste spell, as well as a teleportation spell, though that one was unsuited to anything but extremely short jumps, because it took too long otherwise.

Then there was her coverage for different situations. Earth shaping and wind manipulation because most battles would be fought in the presence of both of those elements, heat and cold spells because temperature control had nearly infinite uses, light and darkness spells to improve or hinder visibility. And then there were survival type spells, like breathing without air, equalizing pressure and blocking harmful substances, and a full suite of search-type spells, because information was power.

She had no need for strengthening or resilience-type spells because channeling her dragon magic through her body did a better job than any of those spells were capable off without extreme effort. (Of course, without her gift, trying to circulate dragon magic through her body would cause her to explode.)

Of course, even if those were her standard spells, it did not mean they were everything she would use, it just meant that if she needed to use other spells, it would not be as fast and precise as her normal ones, but frequently Twilight would do it, because it was the best thing to do on those circumstances. She was a genius mage and knew a lot of spells and could adapt them on the fly, so it would be a waste to not do it.

Going over all of that took quite a bit of time, because Twilight was weaving her spells into different parts of the katas and in different situations, making sure her level of proficiency with the spells was at the limit that she could do. Twilight stopped a bit to rest before her second round of training.

After that it was time to try to add to her arsenal. Twilight could use gravity spells, but making them viable as a combat tool for her standard spells was something completely different. There were questions of area of effect, power of effect and duration of effect that had to be observed, even before you got into variations like sideways gravity or reverse gravity. Being able to use exactly the right amount of power of gravity to stop her enemies without hurting them, and being able to choose the precise range to be able to hit them, and being able to do all that in an instant... That was what Twilight wanted her standard to be.

She did not have any problems mustering enough power for the higher levels of the spell, since she could use her dragon magic as a power source, but Twilight's problem was that she needed to make the calculations with extreme speed and precision in order to adapt the spells used to the specific situations she was faced with.

And in order to do that, Twilight had a very specific kind of training in mind. She used a spell to create a screen that would show different sizes and powers for her spells, and would choose them randomly. Twilight would just have to follow the instructions of the screen.

And so it was done. First she simply kept focusing on the screen, but later she began doing her katas and other spells at the same time as she looked, since in combat she would not get the chance to be completely without distractions when it came time to use the spells. For now she was just training the most basic increase gravity downwards version of the spell. She wanted to have that down before starting with more complicated stuff.

Eventually, the time came to 3:30 PM and Twilight had to finish things off. She had made some progress in her training, but she was still not satisfied enough with her mastery of the gravity spells to be able to truly make them part of her standard repertoire.

She then walked back through the passages and into the teleport formation, which she used as a focus for a normal teleport spell (since there was no other magic formation like that where she wanted to go), and teleported to the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, far enough from the center that the chaotic magic of the forest would not disrupt her teleportation.

She had to go to the first meeting of the League of Harmony.

-0-

Applejack's day started later than that of any other member of the family, at 07:00 AM. Granny Smith had insisted because Applejack often stayed up very late doing all the management work of the corporation. The earth pony had tried to argue, but Granny Smith had a lot more experience being stubborn than her.

After getting out of bed, Applejack went to the kitchen and made her breakfast, eating quite a bit more than usual due to the exertion of the previous day. Then she took a small walk around the house to wake herself up completely and stretch, and then she returned home and went to her office, where she fired up her computer.

It wasn't monday, which was the day she got the most amount of regular paperwork, but there were still a lot of things to look over: Reports, requests, and all of the other minutiae of running a corporation. They were all incredibly dry reads, because apparently that was a requirement for this kind of thing, and it was very tempting to skim things or skip around, but Applejack had not gotten to the point where she was known as the "self-made Apple of the business world" by doing less than her best in whatever work she was doing, so Applejack persevered. She had gotten used to it and had a better than working understanding of pretty much all the parts involved, from economics to legal wrangling.

Applejack efficiently worked her way through a figurative stack of work, thankful for the program that let her sort documents according to priority, based on a variety of factors. It had been a pain to implement, but had made things a lot smoother overall, and was the kind of initiative that had helped grow her business so much. She spent two and a half hours just doing that, and it was already 10:00 AM when she was finished, which was a good time.

After that, it was time for the part of the day she really wasn't looking forward to. Applejack send a message to three particular ponies asking to connect for a video conference and then waited.

Ten minutes later, Apple Fritter, Apple Pie and Golden Delicious were connected to her, and Applejack checked her webcam to make sure that all three could see her as clearly as she was seeing them. And not being able to delay anymore, Applejack took a deep breath and started talking:

"Ah'm sure ya're wondering why Ah'm calling ya three at the same time so suddenly."

There was a general noise of agreement from the three.

"The thing is... Some things came up, and Ah decided ta accelerate the plan to give ya three some of mah responsibilities." Applejack said honestly.

"What?!" "Are ya serious?" "Is this true?" All three of them reacted with incredulity.

"Yes, it is true." Applejack said patiently "Ah know we had a whole timeline for slowly getting ya all used ta the work ya'll be doing as top level managers. But some things moved faster than Ah expected, and now Ah will be really busy with some stuff related ta the Princesses with irregular hours... And so ya'll have ta step up in mah stead."

"What is this stuff with the princesses ya're talking about?" Golden Delicious asked.

"It's secret stuff. Ah can't really say nothing about it." Applejack answered.

They decided to let it drop in that case. And after that, even though the plan to pass the responsibilities to the three had already been discussed and accepted by them previously, there were still a lot of things to do. Not just remaking the timeline of management changes, but also questions about relative levels of authority on certain issues, and about how to change the pipeline so that the new work they were going to be doing got to them instead of Applejack having to redirect it herself...

There were a lot of things to decide, and Applejack ended up keeping the meeting going until 12:30 PM, and she knew that she would have some extra work in the next few weeks to make sure everything was working correctly.

Feeling hungry, Applejack went down to the kitchen and made lunch. She went to the dining room and saw that her brother was still there, so there was opportunity for a talk.

"How are things going?" She asked in between bites.

"Tough Cookie was ill today, so things were a little rough for the morning activities." He answered "And you?"

"Mostly the same old stuff, but Ah did set up things to get more free time." She said with a voice that only had a tiny bit of bitterness to it.

Applejack now had an important duty that took precedence over her work, but that didn't mean it was easy to change things like this.

"So... The meeting is today, right? Have ya decided when we gonna leave?" Big Mac asked.

"Ah think it should be around 3:45. Did ya make sure to leave time for it on the schedule?" Applejack said.

"Course."

Big Mac finished before her and left to go back to his work managing the workers, while Applejack ate the rest of her meal. Just after she was done, Applebloom got home from school.

"Big sis! Ya here!" Applebloom went over to give her sister a hug "Brother told me ya went out yesterday."

Applejack smiled at her and started telling the abridged version of her experiences in the previous day. Then she asked Applebloom what she had done that day. And the answer was that she made two new friends who hadn't gotten their cutie marks either and the three were planning on doing things together to try to earn their cutie marks. And it turned out that one of her friends was actually Sweetie Belle, Rarity's younger sister.

Applejack smiled at Applebloom's enthusiasm and wondered if the two would remain close friends in the future, like she and Rarity. But regardless of the outcome, it was good that she had good friends like that. Applejack remembered Mr. Rich talking excitedly about how his daughter's friend managed to cheer her up during a time where he didn't understand what she was going through and couldn't help.

Eventually, Applebloom went to her room, saying she wanted to prepare herself for "crusading", whatever that meant (It definitely wasn't the Ponyville Crusader brand of it). Then Applejack went back to her room and tried to figure out how the rest of her day would go. There were no meeting planned for that day, so she didn't need to use any of the Rarity dresses in her wardrobe. She didn't feel like going for an inspection in any of her businesses. Checking her timeline of work and issues revealed no particular points in her projects where she felt a need to intervene to keep things going smoothly.

Usually, in this kinds of situations Applejack would still try to find some work to do, even if it wasn't particularly important, but now she had new responsibilities and it was better to get started while she had a relatively free day.

So Applejack got down into the basement of the house. Once there, she moved two particular loose planks to reveal bare earth. Then she concentrated and shifted into the Crusader.

It was always a shocking feeling, to suddenly go from her normal self into the powerful crusader form. Not only did she feel an immense amount of power due to her connection with the land, but she also had her senses increased to a horrifying level. They were so sharp that Applejack was certain there had to be some kind of special function to prevent her from being overwhelmed by her own senses, probably part of the all-around protection she seemed to have.

Still, she had things to do, so Applejack dug a hole on the earth (it was pretty easy with the crusader powers) then she got inside and reached out to put the planks back. Then she got to moving through the earth, making sure to collapse the earth behind her to leave no traces. Soon she was in total darkness, but her enhanced senses allowed her to move forward easily despite that.

She moved below the earth, going in the direction of the Everfree Forest. She had a very specific place to go in mind, and it didn't take all that long to get there, since she was moving at a fairly high speed.

The place in question was in fact a clearing. A place where generations of Crusaders had trained in order to master their powers and the effect of all that made that specific part of the forest completely free from the influence of the nearby chaos magic as well as the threat of any of the creatures of the forest.

And this time, Applejack herself would join in the line of ponies who made use of that clearing.

She really needed it. Applejack had barely had any time to practice her new powers before becoming involved on the Nightmare Moon incident, and while her level of skill in the Crusader powers was enough to help, she had barely scratched the surface of what those abilities could do.

Take the time where she followed Nightmare Moon's teleport. Applejack had no idea how she had done that and how she could repeat the feat. Asking her brother or grandmother wouldn't work either, both of them had explained that every Crusader had different skills and had to learn how to use them by themselves. Everything was based around energy manipulation, and some of those things were easy to get, like applying power to increase offence and defense, but something like teleporting was far different from that, and she had only done it one time by instinct.

But training on something like that would probably have to be a long term project, so Applejack decided to start with mastering her ability to step on air, which she had used a few times during that incident but that would definitely be very useful were she to really learn to use it perfectly.

And so, Applejack started leaping into the air and then trying to push off the air itself in order to jump again. At the beginning, she barely managed to get any propulsion from her air steps, but after just a bit of practice, she managed to reach a point where she could solidify the air enough to get a good boost. The next problem after that was mastering how much strength she had to use to get the distance she wanted, and that part was a lot harder.

Time passed, and Applejack switched from jumping too far and not jumping far enough, too high and not high enough and slowly started getting used to the level of strength she needed to apply. Eventually she got to a point where she was somewhat comfortable with her skill (though she would definitely keep training to really master things) and Applejack decided to switch up her training for the moment.

She thought about trying some more acrobatic stuff, like jumping backwards and spinning, and doing all sorts of movements to be able to navigate through the complex city streets easily, but then Applejack decided that this could be done later. Instead, she realized that there was a much more pressing need that she had to fulfill. The Ponyville Crusader needed some kind of ranged attack.

Applejack spent the next several minutes trying to make something work. At first she thought of making blasts like the ones Dragon Mage was capable of using, but no matter what she did, she could only make the energy on her hooves form a spike instead of launching itself. That would be useful for close combat, but it wasn't what she was looking for.

Eventually, Applejack decided to change her approach and that was when she struck gold. The mare thought about a grenade, charging energy into one of her hooves and then throwing it.

"BOOOM!" And it exploded.

It hadn't gone very far but Applejack was already happy with the progress. She thought about continuing with the training but then realized that it was already time to go to the meeting. So she went back home to pick up Big Mac.

-0-

Rainbow Dash woke up at 07:30 AM, like she did every day. After finishing her morning routine, the pegasus flew to the cloud office of weather management of Ponyville, which was located above the third block of commercial zone of the city. This was something she did everyday, and Dash was quite capable of doing her route entirely by memory.

Reaching inside, she looked at the weather program for the day and the several daily tasks on the board. The weather management system in Ponyville was slightly unusual, in which it was actually divided in two parts. The first part was the general weather program, which the daily workers followed to manage the general weather of the day, as expected. While the second part was the daily task system, in which workers completed more specific weather workings, and every worker could choose what task they would do in each day, having an immense amount of freedom. However, they still had to know the general weather so they wouldn't interfere with it unknowingly.

This system dated back to when the city of Ponyville truly was only a village and didn't need quite the strict weather management it now worked under. Regardless of why, this was something that Rainbow Dash took advantage off, in order to have enough free time to try and bring her powers under control.

Rainbow Dash looked for a suitable task to do for the day, and finally decided upon a simple cloud manipulation job, where she would have to move and congregate clouds to certain parts of the sky in order to rearrange the shade levels on the city and prepare for future rains.

Stamping the task on the board to mark her acceptance, Rainbow Dash flew out of the office and went to the closest point of interest. She moved quickly but carefully, making sure to avoid disturbing any of the other weather magic workings that were already in effect around the city. Her speed was definitely fast, but she deliberately kept herself from going too fast, since there was always a chance she would lose control of her powers if she did that.

Rainbow Dash started moving around clouds and condensing them together, while also pulling moisture out of the air to reduce humidity. She flew around all the needed areas while only taking a few brief pauses to rest, for while her work definitely wasn't very time-sensitive, Dash preferred to have it done early to be able to relax while doing her training (and also because she didn't want to leave a chance for herself to have to work in a time crunch and accidentally go too fast).

At around 11:30 AM, Rainbow Dash was putting the finishing touches on the last part of the work when she was startled by a sudden voice:

"Rainbow."

"Ah!" She crossed her forelegs and turned around, but then relaxed.

She had recognized the pony who spoke, he was actually Cloud Whirl, a pegasus stallion with a black coat and gray mane as well as a paper cutie mark. He was Rainbow Dash's superior in her job, since he was the top weather supervisor of the Ponyville team.

"Mr. Cloud? What did you want?" She asked politely. Rainbow Dash didn't know what could be his reason for talking to her, but he did not seem angry or worried, so she supposed it should not be anything serious.

"Relax, there is nothing wrong." He said calmly "I was just wondering if you'd like a promotion."

"A promotion?" Rainbow Dash was surprised "Was there a new opening? And why me?"

He nodded "Yes, there is a new opening for weather manager, as for why you..." He looked at her seriously "You work hard and are motivated, and you care enough about the big picture to avoid problems with weather interference. I think you would be perfect for the job."

Rainbow Dash looked at him and thought for a moment "Ah. Does that job mean I would get busier?" She asked.

He nodded "Yes, the work of a supervisor involves long hours of both checking effects and doing paperwork."

That settled it "I'm sorry." She shook her head and smiled sadly "But the biggest attraction this job has for me is leaving a lot of free time." She flapped her wings demonstratively "I'm training to join the wonderbolts someday!"

'And I'll also need time to work as a superheroine' She thought.

"Well..." He started "It's a shame, but if you are really certain about your decision, then I will just have to find somepony else."

She nodded "I'm really sure."

"All right then. I'll try and think of somepony else." He said, and flew off.

Rainbow Dash watched it for a few moments and went back to her work. There really wasn't much left, so it didn't take long before she could go back to the office and mark her task as concluded. At that point she was really feeling hungry, so Rainbow Dash flew back home and took out one of her instant meals, which she made and then ate.

Sighing in satisfaction, Rainbow Dash left her home and did the same thing she had done a lot of times ever since she was twelve years old, Rainbow Dash flew off into the mountains and after looking around to see if there was anypony around, she went down and entered an almost invisible crevice where she was forced to walk since there was barely any space to go through. Moving through that crevice, she finally reached the hidden valley that was her destination.

Rainbow Dash sighed and then set her face in a look of determination, then she took off much faster than she had while still in the city, and she just kept accelerating. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings hard and forced her aerokinesis to reduce the air pressure in front of her and also push her forward. She had always felt a secret thrill on those secret training sessions, where she could push herself as hard as she could without worrying about being seen.

Rainbow Dash kept accelerating, and it didn't take long for her to notice something... strange.

'I am so fast and yet... no reaction from the power...'

She felt a flash of hope that she ruthlessly suppressed. There wasn't time to think about those kinds of things, she could still go a lot faster, and she had suffered disappointments so many times because of it that Rainbow Dash almost didn't expect success.

She kept going faster, always mentally prepared for needing to prevent her power from activating automatically, always mentally prepared for the discomfort of an ability that she couldn't fully control.

And yet... nothing.

Rainbow Dash was finding it hard to avoid feeling hope, despite her fear of disappointment. She kept going faster and faster, forcing herself more and more in an almost reckless manner.

Eventually, she found a barrier. It was like a rule of the world itself that tried to prevent her from going faster. Rainbow Dash kept pushing... And the barrier bounced her backwards, flying uncontrollably.

She had hit the sound barrier. The barrier that none without Gifts had ever surpassed. And she had not felt even a trace of discomfort. The power was now completely within her control.

Rainbow Dash landed on a cloud and though hard about it, and she felt that this must have been due to her using her ability so much in the previous day.

Regardless, the why didn't matter. Rainbow Dash cried in happiness within the valley.

-0-

Fluttershy woke up at 06:00 AM. After doing her usual morning routine, she went around the areas of her animal shelter, making an inspection that had also become routine. For most ponies, this would take a while, because there were a lot of areas in the shelter with a lot of animals and a lot of little things to look at, Fluttershy on the other hand...

"Hello, Mr. Snuggles, are you all okay there?" Fluttershy asked a big brown bear.

The bear growled, and Fluttershy could understand that he was saying something about how some of the specialized rations were running out.

"Okay, I'm going to put in an order for more of those, they should get here later tonight. Make sure to warn the others that I am going to be busy meeting some friends starting at four."

He nodded, and Fluttershy went back to her rounds. Since she could understand the animals, she could simply trust them to inform her of things she needed to worry about, though every two weeks she did her own special inspection, just to make sure she wasn't getting rusty.

Fluttershy was pretty much the sole worker of the shelter (which had been left to her care after the previous caretaker, Magic Bunch, died), and she rarely needed to hire part time workers to help with things, since some of the most trustworthy and smart animals could handle a lot of the maintenance tasks such as cleaning and handing out food.

The fact that she only took an hour to inspect every single separate part of the shelter was proof enough of how handy her ability with animals was.

After she was certain that everything was fine on the shelter, Fluttershy went back home and prepared breakfast for herself, it was just something simple, because she had to leave soon, but she still enjoyed it. Then she grabbed her saddlebag and checked it to make sure everything was in order before turning to her pet.

"Okay, Angel, watch the house while I'm away." She told her bunny, and left.

Fluttershy flew through the city at a speed that would put the idea of an old pegasus in the mind of any watcher. She wasn't a big fan of flying, but she had always made an effort of it in order to support her friend Rainbow. And it was just an ordinary day, if there were any emergencies, she would take a bus or something.

It didn't take all that long to reach her destination. It was the veterinary clinic Yellow Sunrise, one of her usual working spots.

Fluttershy had obtained a veterinarian license years before, but she really couldn't stay all day in a clinic while she had to run the shelter (not to mention her... other interests), so over time she became a kind of freelance veterinary, going to clinics every day to help with stuff, and more importantly, her ability to understand animals made her specially well suited to dealing with cases of possible animal abuse or problems that were not immediately obvious (since she could ask how the animals were feeling).

Thankfully, animal abuse cases were rare.

"Hello, Miss Sparkle." Fluttershy greeted the owner of that particular clinic "Is there anything you want my help with?"

"Ah, Fluttershy." Aurora Sparkle (no relation to Twilight Sparkle, despite the similar names) "Actually, yes. We have a hamster that was dropped off here by the owners because he's sick, but I didn't manage to figure out what was wrong. Ah, and if you could also give him a bath as well...?"

"You can leave it to me." Fluttershy assured her.

The hamster was a particularly cute white and orange specimen (his name was Mouthful), but simply talking to him didn't help a lot. The poor guy was somewhat listless, and the only thing he said was that he was feeling pain in his stomach.

So, Fluttershy reached into her saddlebag and took out one of her inventions. It looked for all the world like a common stethoscope, but it was actually a very advanced instrument Fluttershy had designed in order to be able to check the insides of certain delicate or hard to open objects. The pegasus had quickly figured out that it could be useful for her veterinarian work, so she did a few modifications to the original design in order to make it easier to use, and disguised it as an ordinary stethoscope (it even worked like one, if you didn't know the trick, a part that Fluttershy was particularly proud of).

Fluttershy used the "stethoscope" to check on the hamster's stomach, and it used special lasers to go through the body and analyze it, before sending the information to her by sending images directly into her eyes. It didn't take long for her to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, Mouthful had accidentally swallowed a big piece of rubber, possibly from an eraser, and it was causing problems.

Sighing in relief that it wasn't anything serious, she informed Aurora of the problem and gave a little medication for the hamster to help. After that, she gave a bath to him, and told him the good news, which immediately made him more cheerful.

Then, after saying goodbye to Aurora, she flew off for her next stop.

A few hours passed in much the same vein, with Fluttershy visiting several different clinics and even making a few house calls (only for ponies she knew personally), and thankfully, there were no emergencies or other unexpected things (except when she was asked to give a bath to a very dirty dog, who turned out to actually be a fox underneath all the mud). And Fluttershy made a few stops on the way to get some food to eat, since she liked to have a bunch of small meals everyday.

She finally got back home at two in the afternoon, and checked out the animals again to see if something unexpected had happened. However, everything seemed peaceful, so she went off to do the next thing on her schedule, and took out some things she had bought while on the way back.

It was a bunch of packets of instant food, because she was the one who was going to host the meeting of the League of Harmony, so she had to prepare food, and using instant food was the easiest way to do it.

There were several different kinds of instant food, not just to match the palates of several ponies, but also to allow her to prepare several different types at once. Some had to be microwaved, others put in boiling water and etc. With some help from Angel, everything was ready remarkably quickly, and she put the food in special containers to maintain the heat before carrying it to the lab.

The last thing that had to be done was clearing out some space and preparing things to receive other ponies. Fluttershy was in the middle of it when she realized that she was humming. She was having a lot of fun. It was the first time she was going to be receiving so many ponies in her house at once. Usually, it was only Rainbow Dash who visited her.

Shaking the thought off, Fluttershy finished the last of the preparations and realized that she still had some time to herself, given that it was only three in the afternoon, so she went to work on another pressing problem.

Going to the workshop, Fluttershy stopped near a raised platform, and sitting on top of it was her Chimera Armor.

Fluttershy patted the lion head of the armor and said that it had done a good job. She was very satisfied with the performance of the armor in the first time it had been involved in actual combat, but it was not so strange, considering that she had been working on the various systems of the armor on and off since childhood, and gone through quite a lot of iterations.

It hadn't been perfect, but being able to have such a great performance against a villain of the caliber of Nightmare Moon was something to be proud of.

There were things she wanted to add or change (there always were), but most of them were either long term projects, too situational to be a priority or some other similar problem. No, the real goal of her current work was simply fixing the armor from the damage it had received in the fight of the previous day.

After returning home, Fluttershy had put the armor under the sight of quite a lot of sensors and left them working overnight to diagnose every possible problem with it.

Looking at the data, Fluttershy nodded. Things were more or less how she expected. Nightmare Moon's attack had pierced through three of the five layers of rigid armor, but the force had been redirected away from crucial systems by the way the armor was designed. A lot of connections and mobility gears had been broken, but the Armor had been designed with redundancy in mind, so it still managed to operate at a high percentage of the maximum even with those parts destroyed.

By far, the biggest problem were the vibrations of the attacks that had passed through the armor and caused microfractures across the entire thing. They weren't at a level that would be a problem at that point, but it certainly wasn't something she wanted to just leave as it was. So Fluttershy was planning to make a special chamber that would spread gaseous metal (changed into that state via magical processes) which would bond with a special coating put in the microfractures (which would be a whole other process) and then solidify, fixing everything up.

However, this was another thing that would take a while and wasn't a priority, so Fluttershy grabbed her machining equipment and started fixing up the obvious damage.

It wasn't a particularly concentration heavy type of work, only removing and replacing damaged plates and other types of parts as well as making sure everything was set correctly before fixing everything in place with her special coating, so Fluttershy let her mind wander while she did her work, thinking about what they would talk about during the meeting as well as brainstorming ideas for new inventions designed specifically for hero work.

Fluttershy used a small voice recorder to take notes of her thoughts, and time went by fast. She had already finished most of the maintenance when the alarm suddenly ringed and Fluttershy realized it was almost time for the meeting. Making a last note about what there was left to do, Fluttershy got ready to receive her visitors.

-0-

Pinkie Pie's day started early. She woke up 05:30 AM and left her room in the second floor of Sugarcube Corner, going to the kitchen in the back of the store. She looked at the note saying the amounts of respective products that had to be made for the day.

The next half hour was spent in a culinary haze. Pinkie had done that so many times that she honestly could have finished things with her eyes closed and without using her Pinkie Sense. Singing quietly as to not disturb the Cakes, she made batter and dough with an efficiency comparable to machines, moving so fast that she was actually leaving afterimages. The same went with pouring the completed portions in the molds and putting them in the ovens.

She wasn't actually creating all the day's stock. The Cakes would also make a lot of baked goods, with a particular emphasis on the “daily special” which was where they showed their creativity in baking. Still, it was a lot of things, and Pinkie needed all that speed to be able to finish doing the frosting and other final preparations on everything and putting the products on display before 06:30 AM.

That was when Mr and Mrs Cake came down to open the store, and they alternated working the register and baking, but by that point Pinkie had already moved on to the next part of the day.

The baking was something she did almost every day, but the rest of her schedule was flexible, yet demanding. That day saw her going back to her room and seeing what messages had been left on her email. The first priority was a request for planning a birthday party, so Pinkie started a rough plan based on what few details the e-mail had given (age, gender and preferences of the subject) and sent an e-mail asking for a few more details, like preferences about venues and which number of guests could be expected.

Next she opened another message from a business group that was planning a special event for their employees. Apparently they weren't satisfied with the budget she had worked out and wanted to cut a few “minor things”. Pinkie sighed and thought about her finances and whether she could supplement the budget herself. Then she wrote a revised budget and sent it with another message that contained a recommendation to use the previous budget because the “minor things” were important.

Apart from that, there was also a message from Greenie, a young researcher who was working on soil analysis, saying that he had lost his job and needed help because he didn't know how he could keep paying for his apartment. Pinkie thought about options near where he lived and decided on several possibilities.

After that, it was already 07:30 AM. Pinkie went out and walked to block C of the residential zone, the place Greenie lived. Moving around, she talked with several store owners about the possibility of hiring somepony. She struck out four times, but on the fifth attempt, in a small, family owned clothing store called “Collander's”, she managed to get an assurance that they would have a job available if somepony came looking.

After that it was already 09:00 AM, so Pinkie went to a local waffle house to eat breakfast.

“So, how are things going, Pinkie?” The owner of the waffle house, Periwinkle, asked her while she was eating.

“Same as always. Baking, setting up parties, trying to get people to smile...” Pinkie answered truthfully, although leaving out a lot of details.

“That's nice.”

And the conversation went on, with Pinkie asking about his family (he had a daughter who was fourteen that year) and how business was going (everything was fine). After that, Pinkie went to Greenie's apartment and knocked on the door.

“Who's this?” He asked.

“It's Pinkie Pie! You sent a message about needing a job!” She explained. 

He opened the door “Do you have something?” He asked in an almost pleading voice.

“Of course! Pinkie here checked around, and Collander's will have a place for you.” She assured him.

“Are you serious...? I was just... How can I thank you for that?” He had tears in his eyes.

“Just give me a smile!” She ordered. He complied with a little awkwardness.

“Good. How is your research going, by the way?” She asked.

Talking about research got him excited, and Pinkie heard a lecture about recent trials and experiments, and how he still hadn't reached a high enough sample size to be able to publish his findings as an actual research paper.

By the time he got tired, it was already 10:00 AM, and Pinkie Pie decided to go to Ponyville General Hospital. It was a place she visited once in a while, never setting a specific schedule but appearing often enough that she could be called a common sight. Pinkie nodded to Nurse Redheart when they passed each other in the corridors, in their own secret sign.

After that, she went on with her visit, going to the foal's ward and entertaining them with magic tricks, songs and small games. It was a thing she liked to do, but she didn't have a set schedule or anything, only showing up once in a while when she felt it had been a while since the last time. 

After recharging herself with the smiles of the foals, Pinkie left and walked around until she found Redheart again and the two walked into a storage room to have a conversation in privacy.

“What do you have to tell me?” The nurse asked.

“Something amazing happened last night!” Pinkie spoke quickly “I went out as usual, and Cruzie was there as well (or at least the new Cruzie), but there was also Magey from Canterlot and three others who were going out for the first time and there was a whole thing with a biiiiiiig problem but we were all awesome and we even got to meet Sunny and we decided to become a real team!” 

Redheart was already used to Pinkie's nonstop way of speaking, but she still had to take a moment to understand all the things she had hidden through the code the two were used to using. 

“So, a team, huh? Does this mean you'll have an easier time?”

“I might still need your help once in a while. But things have gotten much better than before, actually! There are a few things we should have a real conversation about later and that is included.” Pinkie said.

Redheart nodded. She was always worried about Pinkie's injuries, and it seemed there was something to be discussed about it in a more private place. They scheduled a place and time to meet on the next day, and then Pinkie Pie said goodbye and left.

By that point, it was already 12:00 PM, time for lunch, so Pinkie went back home and ate with the Cakes. During that time, she finally had the chance to explain to them what had happened the previous night. 

“... And now I'm feeling so much better! I mean, I wasn't feeling bad at all before, but now it's like 'Pinkie, you have to move! You can jump and reach the sky!'” She threw her hooves to the air in emphasis “and we set up a meeting later today in Fluttershy's secret lab and isn't it just amazing that one of my new friends has a secret lab? I usually only get inside secret labs when I'm trying to destroy them, but I'll have to contain my instincts today and by the way did the customers like the specials?” She asked eagerly.

“Yes, they did.” Mr. Cake said patiently “It also seemed like you did good in baking today, the customers seemed to think the normal treats were tastier than usual.”

“They did? Amazedayze!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“I think the issue of this being a new era of superpowers certainly will cause a lot of problems, so it's good that you are already planning things out and have a connection to the princesses.” Mrs. Cake made her comment “I imagine that she would gather Gifted ponies to do something like that eventually, so this may have just made things proceed faster.”

Pinkie smiled. Mrs. Cake was really smart.

The lunch proceeded and by the time it was over the clock was already showing the time of 1:00 PM. It was almost time for the next thing she had to do, so Pinkie left Sugarcube Corner and walked to the block C of the residential zone of Ponyville.

A house had recently been bought there, and the finally would finally move into the house that day. Pinkie got there at 1:30 PM, just in time to help the working crew and family with putting the furniture in place.

“Ah, Pinkie, how are you doing?” One of the workers, an earth pony stallion named Easy Step greeted the mare when he saw her.

“Just doing what I can.” Pinkie answered “Speaking of that, do you want some help?”

He smiled “Well, if you're offering...”

And that was that, Pinkie helped the working crew with putting all the pieces of furniture in their proper places. The family was surprised to see a new pony appear and begin to help so suddenly, but given that the working crew clearly knew this Pinkie Pie, they accepted it.

In the process, Pinkie talked with the members of the family and managed to learn their names and situation.

The clear chief of the house was the pegasus mare White Night, who had decided on their move to Ponyville by accepting a teaching position in Ponyville's Red Advanced Flying School, where she would teach the finer points of weather control. Her wife was a unicorn called Frozen Life who worked making and selling ice cream independently. There was also White's brother, Red Night, a pegasus who was currently unemployed, but used to be part of the weather team in Neighfornia, where they lived before. Finally, there was the adopted daughter Star Heart, an earth pony who was only six years old and didn't have a cutie mark yet.

Once everything was done, Pinkie talked with White “It was nice to meet you. If you need any help, or there's something you want to know, you can send me a message.” She gave her a piece of paper with the correct address and then left.

After that, it was already two and a half, so she went back to Sugarcube Corner and greeted Orange Leaf, the earth pony who worked the register for the afternoon shift. She grabbed a muffin to have a quick bite while she talked a little bit with the other mare about how the work was going. And then it was time to suit up.

Pinkie again went to one of the more hidden and calm places in the neighborhood and changed to her Mare Do Well outfit. Then she finally relaxed her muscles. 

That was something she did in alternate days, as a way of keeping herself in the best possible shape at all times. It had been an exercise fad a few years back, “Train while you're working! Train while you're playing! With the Magical Muscle Manipulation Method! The 4M!”. It was an instructional booklet that taught any ponies to be able to use their own magic to stimulate their muscles and train.

It didn't last for very long, because the results weren't any better than just exercising normally, unless you trained quite a lot on the method, and even then it wasn't much better. But the worst part was that, while it was said that you could train while doing other things, thus making it useful, in practice the level of concentration needed to train correctly made it fairly difficulty to try doing anything else. Still, Pinkie thought it could help, and over the years she had mastered the method to the point where she could use it almost without thinking.

And she was fairly excited about today's exercise, because the healing she had gotten from Celestia meant that Pinkie's physical abilities had a marked increase. She had already been pretty much at a level of fitness that usually only the highest level professional athletes reached, but now Pinkie imagined that her physical prowess had reached an entire new level. 

And she was pretty excited to test her new capabilities. 

So the first thing she did after suiting up was climbing onto the nearest building. And then she started to run. Jumping from building to building, running on walls with the help of her climbing spikes (using earth pony magic to prevent the walls from being damaged) and shooting her grappling hook to swing across the city.

Those were all things she always did, and Pinkie knew Ponyville enough that she could navigate even with her eyes closed and without using her Pinkie Sense (yes, same as baking), but that wasn't what she was trying to do, so she kept her eyes open. Instead, Mare Do Well forced herself further and further, jumping distances she had never been able to, standing on a single leg at a high ledge to take her strength to the limit, forcefully stopping herself from high-speed movements in ways she had never dared to in order to test her resilience...

Pinkie spent half an hour just familiarizing herself with the new capabilities of her body, and she loved every second. 

Still, fun had to stop sometime, and during her travel through the city, she had seen a huge sign hanging off a window of a building. 

'MY SON IS MISSING, PLEASE HELP' 

'So Tempest Green is missing...' Mare Do Well, thought. 

It was the traditional way of requesting help from the Mysterious Mare Do Well, and she wouldn't let anypony down. 

Focusing on her Pinkie Sense, and on the mental image of the sign, Do Well let herself be guided through the city. And it didn't take long before she got a hit. It was in Green Park, a natural park that stood at the edges of the commercial zone. It was a place with a lot of ponies, but Do Well ended up going to a part of it that didn't have many of them. 

It was one of the zones with deep vegetation. They weren't very big, but there was a fair amount of them, and while moving through the trees, Do Well eventually started hearing some low cries.

Moving a little bit forward, she found a small hole that was almost completely concealed by vegetation, and inside that hole was a small unicorn foal.

“help...” He spoke, his voice still weak but having gained some power from hearing a pony nearby. 

“Don't worry. Mare Do Well is here to rescue you.” She said, and shoved herself down into the hole, before carefully grabbing the foal and putting him on her back with her magic. One of his legs was broken, and he was full of scratches, some of them fairly deep. She made her way back out of the hole. 

“Thank... you...” Tempest Green said. 

“Do you know the number of your house?” She asked.

She was moving back towards Ponyville General, the closest hospital from there. The colt spoke slowly and she wrote it in a piece of paper from a small notebook, all without taking either her pen, or the notebook from her mane, just by using her magic. 

Soon, Mare Do Well had burst into the entrance of the hospital and gotten the attention of a nurse (not Redheart, a pegasus stallion called Callid Noise). She gave the unicorn to the nurse along with the piece of paper with the number. 

“Call his mother to tell her the good news.” She said simply, before leaving. 

After that, it was almost 4:00 PM, but Pinkie still had a little bit of time. So she swung near the back of the police station and looked at a certain window, which was the window of the office of the chief of police, Lightning Clash. 

The flag in that window was on the left side instead of the right, meaning that the chief didn't want a meeting with Do Well. So she simply changed her direction and started moving towards the Everfree Forest. 

-0-

Rarity woke up feeling a faint sensation of pain all over her entire body.

'I guess this is to be expected, considering how much I've used my Gift.'

She had always known that using her power put a burden on her body, ever since her first tests with them so long before, but it was the first time she felt what it was like when she used her power seriously.

Still, it took only a few minutes for Rarity to get used to the pain and get up from her bed. She went to make breakfast, since Sweetie Belle wasn't staying in her home at that moment (she would come later that day), so she didn't have to help the unicorn filly prepare for her classes.

After eating, Rarity went to her workshop and looked over her current projects. Thankfully, there was nothing particularly time critical going on, so Rarity didn't have to rush as she went from one piece of clothing to another, trying different combinations of colors and styles for the ones she still hadn't quite finished the design, while weaving things together to finish the work of those she had.

The pain started fading slowly throughout the day, and the work put Rarity in a good mood, so she was humming while she worked on her dresses. This even put her on the idea of a new design, which Rarity began solidifying at the same time as she did her regular work.

Eventually, she got tired, and having gotten through a good amount of the work that had been piling up, she decided that it was already enough for that day, and made a note about what she should work on first the next time.

After that, Rarity put a bit of food for her cat, Opalescence, and went to make a meal for herself. Except that she actually cooked for two ponies, given that Sweetie Belle would be coming to her house after school and would definitely be feeling hungry.

It was relatively early in the day, so Rarity took her time instead of rushing through the preparations. And her sense of timing was exquisite, as only two minutes had passed from the time she finished cooking to the time that Sweetie Belle arrived.

"Hello, sis!" The filly ran over to her and hugged her.

"Hello, Sweetie Belle, I hope you're hungry, because I have just made some food."

"Uh-Huh!"

The two of them went to the kitchen to get their food, and then went to the table to eat. Sweetie Belle spoke a lot, clearly excited:

"... and then we decided to call ourselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders and search for our cutie marks together!" She finished the story and put some more food in her mouth,

Apparently, it had happened during classes earlier that day. Sweetie Belle had made friends with two other fillies her age that also hadn't earned their cutie marks yet, and one of them was actually Applebloom, Applejack's little sister.

Considering that first, the two were now together on the same team, and second, now their sisters were friends, Rarity imagined that she would be spending a lot more time with Applejack in the future, in contrast with recent months, in which the two were far too busy to maintain contact with any regularity.

Speaking of that, she had already arranged for Sweetie Belle to spend the night on Applejack's house (Granny Smith had promised to take care of them) given that she would be busy in a meeting of the newly formed League.

"Do you think Scootaloo would be able to go on the sleepover with you two?" Rarity asked her sister.

"Ah, that is a good idea!" Sweetie exclaimed "Wait a minute, I'll go call her!"

Rarity smiled as Sweetie ran out of the dining room and went to the phone. She went back to eating peacefully, and as promised, Sweetie Belle came back fairly quickly... Except that she had a strange expression on her face.

"Sister... That meeting you are going to... Does it have anything to do with your Gift?" She asked.

"Ah- How did you get that idea?!" Exclaimed Rarity, slightly panicked.

"I saw the marks on your costume." Sweetie said, deadpan "And for that matter, I saw the costume."

Rarity placed her head on the table "What a blunder... I forgot to hide it before I went to sleep."

"So... What is going on?"

"I can tell you, but you have to promise that you won't tell anypony about it, not even your friends."

"I promise." Sweetie said solemnly.

"Okay, how do I start...?"

And so Rarity told Sweetie about the things that had happened on the previous day. She very deliberately left out the identities of the other heroes, saying that it was their secret to keep or share, but she explained mostly everything else, including the fact that many more Gifts would appear in the world from them on, which was the reason why the six had decided to join up and become a team.

After it was over, Sweetie Belle said she wanted to go out to meet with her new friends and Rarity allowed it, going to grab her costume and try to find a safe place to hide it.

After thinking for a while, Rarity had an idea. She manipulated the threads to separate the costume into five parts, and then wove some extra bits of fabric and jewels on each part, in such a way that she could remove the extras and fuse the costume together quickly when the need arose. And outside of that situation, the separate parts of the costume would not seem strange in any way in the middle of her workshop.

That pressing task complete, Rarity went back to her room and took out a notebook.

If she was going to be a superheroine, that meant she needed to do her best, and that meant trying out things, making experiments and looking for new things. Specifically, she was thinking about some of the Gemstones she had tested while making her costume and declared useless for her purposes. It was fairly possible that some of them could actually be useful with a little bit of thought or some training, since a few of them had abilities she hadn't entirely understood while testing, and could have hidden potential.

Besides that, there was the fact that there were many different types of gemstones. So many that there were several she hadn't been able to get, and thus she still didn't know of their abilities.

So, she got to work. Rarity listed what she knew about every gemstone she had "in reserve" so to speak, as well as every single gemstone she hadn't been able to find that she could remember. This was connected to something else that she decided to do. Both Dragon Mage and Mysterious Mare Do Well were experienced heroes, so they would definitely have a lot of suggestions and ideas about how to use the esoteric abilities and which types of skills she should try to develop.

Rarity ended up getting a little too much into this whole process, since imagining ways she could use her abilities was similar to imagining ways certain colors and patterns could go together in certain situations. As such, she lost track of time, and only the telephone suddenly ringing made the unicorn look up and realize that it was already almost time to leave for the meeting.

"Sister!" It was Sweetie Belle on the phone "I'm just calling to say that the three of us are already here on Appleblooms house!"

"Okay, Sweetie! Have fun with your friends!" It was a short conversation.

Grabbing a quick bite and storing the pages she had written inside her costume, Rarity put it back together and dressed herself as Gemstone once again.

-0-

Fluttershy spoke a small but complex code phrase, and the program accepted it and sent a command to a particular part of her extended base. That command made a part of the ground that was surrounded by trees move to the side to reveal a hidden hatch, along with a blinking red light.

The members of the newly formed League of Harmony had decided that the best place to have their first meeting was inside Fluttershy's secret lab, so she had told them the approximate location of a convenient entrance and opened it, along with putting that sign to make it easier for them to find (though Rainbow Dash didn't need the help, having visited Fluttershy's lab several times in the past).

Besides Sonic Rainbow, the first one to find the passage was the Ponyville Crusader, because even though the beacon light could only be seen from above and she didn't have the ability to fly, Ponyville Crusader's senses were good enough to detect the opening based just on the sound of the air, given that she already knew the general location.

After that, the Mysterious Mare do Well, Dragon Mage and Gemstone arrived in sequence, and Fluttershy, who could see them arriving through a hidden camera in the opening, spoke another small code phrase to cover up the hatch again.

The entrance the members of the league had used was one of Fluttershy's exit tunnels, and it spiraled downwards a good bit before coming back up in a ramp that led directly to the workshop section of Fluttershy's laboratory (she had emergency doors that could be used to block the tunnel in case of unwelcome guests, but obviously they were not active at that time).

Fluttershy was waiting next to the entrance, and as the other heroines started arriving, they joined her in waiting for the rest of the group while making small talk. And it didn't take long at all, with every single member arriving in a short period of time and taking off their costumes (and similar). And when Ponyville Crusader arrived, she showed one of the powers the Crusader was known for, the ability to carry other ponies and protect them inside their body (which did something involving space, because it was possible to carry much more than should be able to fit), by having Big Mac come out before Applejack turned back into regular form.

After everypony arrived and put away their costumes, Fluttershy took them to the area of the workshop she had set up to receive the group. It was only a small thing, just a table with the prepared food and a bunch of cushions for them to sit, but it was cozy and none of them were the type who would mind that it was simple.

"So, first order of business." Twilight took the lead in the meeting with naturality "We should all introduce ourselves, just to make sure we're on the same page."

She looked around as the others nodded, then she went back to talking "I'll start. My name is Twilight Sparkle and I'm the First Court Mage of Equestria. I am also Dragon Mage."

"My name's Rainbow Dash!" Said pegasus exclaimed "I'm a freelance weather worker and also Sonic Rainbow."

"My name is Fluttershy... I'm the caretaker of the central Ponyville Animal Shelter and a freelance veterinary. I am also Gaia Knight."

"Mah name is Applejack. Ah'm the chief of the Apple Corporation, and the current Ponyville Crusader."

"Ah'm Big McIntosh. Worker manager of the Sweet Apple Acres and the previous Ponyville Crusader."

"I'm Rarity. I am a fashion designer and seamstress of the Carousel Boutique. I am also Gemstone."

"I'm Pinkie Pie! Baker of the Sugarcube Corner, Party Planner and Mare do Well!"

There was a moment of silence before Twilight brought up the next part of the agenda "Most of us have come to this meeting because we are going to be part of a new team of heroes, so we need to work out the specifics of how this will work and inform the new heroes about the things the veterans think will be useful to known about the hero world, which is why Big Mac is here."

The mentioned pony nodded.

"I think the best place to start would be with Celestia's Foresight magic." Twilight sighed "Essentially, it allows her to have a vague sense of which things she must do in order to lead events to the best conclusion. Because of that, Celestia was watching during my test to enter Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, when my power awakened and it and my magic together ended up causing havoc. She prevented anything bad from happening and hid the fact that I had received powers, before making me her apprentice and training me to become a heroine.

"I came to this city because of Celestia's Foresight magic saying that I would be needed here in the long term, which I guess means that Ponyville is going to be needing the help of a team of superheroes in the long term, though I'm sure Celestia will send us to other places to deal with crises when they happen, because teleportation formations are very convenient."

"That might be a bit of a problem." Applejack put in "The power of the Ponyville Crusader is tied ta the grounds of Ponyville and nearby places. Ah would still have some power outside, but not nearly as much..."

Twilight nodded "Princess Luna told me about that. There is a great research project that's been active for centuries to try and find a way around that, but anyway, even a reduced Ponyville Crusader is still a great help. There were many occasions in the past where a great threat was averted because the Ponyville Crusader of the time left Ponyville to help."

Applejack smiled at that "Ah'll do what Ah can, then."

"After that..." Twilight continued "I think we should talk about the common threats we'll have to deal with, and considering that we'll be based on Ponyville, we should probably start with the local problems." She looked to Big Mac and Pinkie Pie with expectation.

The stallion was the one to talk first.

"Ah guess the first thing ta talk about should be Flame Empress." He closed his eyes in thought "She has a powerful Gift, the ability ta create and manipulate flames up ta a level where she can create building sized flames. No idea what she actually wants. Sometimes she steals stuff, sometimes she destroys things randomly, more than once she attacked me while Ah was doing something. And she is too silent for me ta get an impression from her words."

"Yeah, and it's really annoying every time she attacks because all that hot air messes up with the weather patterns something fierce." Rainbow Dash put in her own two bits, sounding annoyed.

Pinkie was the next "There is always the mech robbers. You know, those ponies who use technological armors to rob banks, museums and whatever else. No matter how many you send to jail, more appear later." She sighed.

"Yeah, they are a problem everywhere." Twilight agreed "There are at least three different sources of those mech armors, one of them being a Gift bearer who makes them himself, while the others use scavenged technology from old inventors that they've managed to reproduce to a certain degree. They sell those things on the black market and we are always trying to catch the merchants, but they are good at staying in the shadows."

"Speaking of shadows..." Pinkie put on a serious expression "There is also 'The Boss'. He or she is pretty much the ruler of the criminal underworld in Ponyville, and has been for the last eight years without me being able to find who they are. Their method consists of sending money to criminals via some sort of teleportation, which I guess is their Gift, along with instructions on how to use it. And without ever personally meeting with any criminals, they still manage to have a hoof on most of the crimes that happen in this city." She scowled "I don't like it."

"If the boss writes those instructions by hoof, maybe I could find a few traces of them by looking at the papers." Fluttershy piped up "I know you've probably already tried something like that, but I can think of a few detection methods that can only be used with super technology."

"That would be nice. I'll see if I can bring back one of the ones I found." Pinkie answered.

"And the last constant threat we have ta worry about in Ponyville is Carrion. A griffin with a Gift of teleportation, who loves ta hunt and kill ponies for sport." Big Mac said, with obvious anger "He is a coward that runs away whenever somepony stronger appears."

Rarity was the one to scowl that time "Him. He almost killed my mother once, and ever since then she has waled with a limp." Her expression softened when she looked at Pinkie "Thank you for saving her."

"It's what I do." Pinkie nodded and smiled.

Twilight thought that something was odd "What about the Crystal Creation? Wasn't it the monster Discord had set to hound this city?"

"It's dead." Big Mac and Pinkie Pie spoke at the same time "We fought it on the underground tunnels and managed to destroy it, though it wasn't without sacrifices." Pinkie finished and looked at Big Mac with slight sadness.

"Discord will eventually replace it with some other monster. But for now, Ponyville is safe from that." He commented.

"So, I guess it's time to talk about some of the big threats in the whole of Equestria." Twilight said.

"Obviously, there's Discord. As you well know, he rarely acts directly, preferring to create what he calls 'Chaotic Beasts' and send them to cities to cause havoc in all kinds of different ways. Each one has their own appearance, abilities and strategies, but what they all have in common is that they are created and live to cause chaos."

"Ya said he 'rarely' acts directly." Applejack took the word "How much is 'rarely'?"

"Around once per century." Twilight spoke without hesitation, then went back to her explanation.

"There's the Wandering Mage. She is not a direct threat most of the time, but she is a mercenary that has committed a lot of crimes for the sake of money. She uses a powerful artifact called Alicorn Amulet that gives her immense magical power, and usually it would also make the wielder lose control, but she has some kind of Gift that allows her to prevent that from happening."

Pinkie raised her hoof "Are you sure it's a Gift instead of some other cause?"

"Relatively sure." Was Twilight's answer.

"After that, there's Grogar the Fourth. Descendant of the original Grogar. He doesn't have any Gifts that we know about, but he is a powerful and skilled warlock with control over an entire alternate dimension. His deal is getting more power, sometimes by abducting other beings, sometimes by stealing magical resources and sometimes doing other things."

"I think my father told me a story about that. Something about the first Grogar being defeated by... Majesty?" Rarity said.

"Yeah. Majesty the Unicorn. She lived before Queen Majesty utterly ruined the name." Twilight said with a sigh "She was one of the strongest heroines in history, and definitely the strongest of her generation. She even once managed to tie against Tirek in a one on one fight."

There was a moment of silence.

"How likely it is that we'll end up having to fight against Tirek?" Rainbow Dash asked, already imagining that she wouldn't like the answer.

"Distressingly likely." Twilight said "He has been rather quiet lately, but his patterns always shift between quiet periods and periods of intense activity." She waited a moment "Thankfully, we'll probably be a lot more well-prepared and experienced when it comes time to actually go against him."

They thought about that for a bit before Twilight got things back on track.

"Those are the most important to know about. There are a few other threats but we can talk about them later." She looked around "I think we should decide about who gets to be team leader."

The other six looked at her, confused "Wasn't it you?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"What? No, we never actually decided that, and I mean... Pinkie is more experienced than me, she could be a good leader."

Said pony rolled her eyes good-naturedly "I''m experienced, but you're just made for leading. Didn't you see how you've been taking charge of things ever since we met?" She looked around "Who else thinks that Twilight should be the leader?"

She raised her hoof, followed immediately by every other pony in the room save Twilight herself.

The unicorn blushed at that.

"I guess it's decided." Pinkie nodded "What's the next thing on the agenda, leader?"

Twilight hesitated for a moment, then smiled.

"Well..."

And so their meeting continued.

-0-

The first meeting of the League of Harmony is underway and things are peaceful for now. However, this definitely won't last forever. A new threat is approaching, but is it a new threat or an old one? Find out in the next chapter of League of Harmony! Point of View part 1.

I'll see you there!