Prologue: Prepare For The Lecture
Inside a college lecture hall, at a podium to the left of where a large screen would be, stood a twenty-something woman, she had dark sapphire hair with two streaks, one was rose and the other was violet, with violet eyes, and metallic wings purple and gold in color which seemed to float behind her and yet also come from her back with two amethyst six-pointed stars functioning for the wings like her arm's shoulder balls. She wore a headband with a horn-like amethyst focusing gem on her forehead, with a dull blue robe with large golden cuffs, pink pants and brown boots that went up above her ankle. Around her neck was a triangle-like amulet that was colored like a rainbow of orange, yellow, cyan, alabaster, pink and purple. This was Princess Twilight Sparkle, Twilight for short, and she was preparing to give what seemed to be a lecture, “In closing, if somebody had told me when I was a little girl, that I would give a lecture at Princess Celestia's School For The Gifted, I wouldn't have believed it, but…” Twilight stopped as she looked at her note cards and shuffled them to get to the next point thing she was talking about. Once she found it she did a quick read of it before she went back to speaking, “here we are today. I hope I have been up to the task because I know that all of you are and because of that the future of magic in all forms in Mystica is in good hands.” Twilight paused as she waited for a second or two as if she expected applause. After a second, “Thank you, now for the Q&A.”
The lecture hall then echoed the sound of one set of hands clapped. Twilight looked up to the seats of the lecture hall and saw only one person there. A purple-scaled bipedal reptile with green spines along its back, about the size of a twelve-thirteen-year-old boy, continued to clap a few more time, “Wow, hehe.” the reptile cheered very half-heartedly. As he looked around a little nervous, “That was even better than the first eleven times,” it said as it rubbed the back of its head and neck with its left hand. The reptile then cleared his throat, “Although you might want to drop the whole ‘up to the task, future of magic’ bits.” It then gave a weak apologetic laugh.
“Eh,” Twilight groaned as she walked from the podium looking to the ground,“I don't know, Spike.” she addressed the reptile while she levitated the note cards and looked through them. “I'd like to be able to get through the whole speech once without looking at any of my note cards.”
The recently identified Spike face-clawed himself with a groan before he spoke, “You do know that reason you have them is to not write the whole thing done on all of them, but jot down a few clues to help you remember in case you forget a part of the lecture right?” Twilight dipped her head with a cross between a sad frown and pout on her face. Spike sighed, “You got this Twilight, Celestia knows you can do this, if not she wouldn’t have asked you to. Beside these are students that have been taught with some of your own research, there’s no need to be nervous.”
Twilight giggled a little, “Oh, my little dragon. I'm not nervous,” she declared as she walked to end of the stage, “but as Princess Celestia’s most recent apprentice and a demigod, I do have to set a good example, especially for all the first year magic students in the audience. Also, the entire school will be either be here in the hall or watching projections of this lecture in their classrooms. And I am the first guest lecture under 25, former student or not. This is a really big deal. That's why this speech has to be…” Twilight stopped as she held out her right hand in Spike’s direction.
Spike rolled his eyes as he gave a tired sigh, “Perfect?” he stated in a rhetorical question. He had seen this dog and pony show enough times to pretty much have ‘Twilight Sparkle’ as a synonym for ‘perfectionist’ in his cognitive thesaurus. Spike froze in abject horror and terror. The very fact that the concept of a ‘cognitive thesaurus’ seemed to be a natural thing to him sent a shiver down his spines, he has spent too much time with Twilight. He decided then and there that he needed to spend more time with Big Mac and the other guys. ‘I need to invite Discord to the next Guys’ Night, and humor his wants for the first two hours.’ He thought as regained himself.
“Exactly, I cannot afford a single error.” Twilight turned her attention from the dragon and went back to the podium she used as her zone of control for the lecture. Once there and after she shuffled her note cards to be in the proper order, “Let's go through it one more time, the thirteenth time’s the charm.” Twilight then cleared her throat and after she drank some water from the glass she started her lecture from the top, “When Princess Celestia asked me to speak to you today, I was honored to have the opportunity to talk about my favorite subject: magic.” Spike groaned as started to bash his head against the wall as Twilight continued, seemingly oblivious to her familiar's plight.
Chapter 1: Revenge of Glimglam
The next day, in the same lecture hall, Twilight stood at the podium, to her right was a large screen pull down to show to the audience in attendance visual references to her lecture, much like a slide show. The current slide showed a Venn diagram of three circles made up of red on the top, pink on the bottom right and purple on the bottom left. In the red circle that didn’t intersect with the other two had the picture of the face of a girl somewhere between twelve and fourteen, she had mulberry hair with grayish rose streaks and light green eyes, she also wore a tiara with a light green focus gem cut in a pentagon. This was Sweetie Belle or rather a picture of her. In the area where the red circle overlapped the purple circle was a pink musical note on a purple star where it inspected just the purple circle. In the purple circle itself, where it didn’t overlap with either of the circles was the picture of a girl the same age as Sweetie Belle, with bright amaranth red hair with a bright crimson bow in her hair, and gamboge orange eyes, this was Apple Bloom. In the part of the purple circle that intersected with the pink circle was a pink heart on a purple apple. In the pink circle where it did not intersect with the other two circles was the picture of the face of a third girl. She was the same age as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and had cerise hair that was cut short with grayish purple eyes, this was Scootaloo, and with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, she made the Cutie Mage Crusaders, often called the CMC for short. In the area of the pink circle and red circle intersected was a lightning bolt on a purple wing. The last part of the image was where all three circles intersected each other, in that part was a heater shield colored from left to right, red, pink and purple.
All the while, Twilight spoke and had just finished the part of her lecture that addressed the unique event of three people, each of a different race, Apple Bloom was an Earthborn, Scootaloo a Skyborn and Sweetie Belle a Magicborn not only discovered their aura marks together but have very similar ones, “Obviously, the long term effects of the simultaneous acquisition of aura marks have yet to be determined, let alone the fact that members of the three major races of Mystica with extremely similar aura marks,” Twilight picked up a glass of water and took a few sips. “However this is not unprecedented.” She took from the top of the podium a small remote that made a click as the slide changed to a copy of a photo of her when she didn’t have wings and five other women about her age. One of them had rainbow colored hair done in a high ponytail and was dressed in a dull purple skirt and light a dull blue shirt with white and gold wing styled sleeves. one had blonde hair done in a low ponytail and was dressed in red leather and bronze armor. Another woman had long gorgeous purple locks and wore a long alabaster dress. The fourth woman had bright pink hair and wore a green, yellow and light blue dress with a stylized pink butterfly as a brooch for her hood. The last member was a woman with cotton candy pink hair and wore bear legged leotard with blue cruelly toed shoes a pink jester coat and a dark pink jester’s hat with three balloons, one was yellow and two were blue. These were in order, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
Twilight continued her lecture, “You can’t tell from this, but my closest friends and I, much like Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo can trace the discovery of our own Aura Marks to a single event! The first sonic rainboom!” Twilight then had the slide change to have a rendering of a nine-year-old Rainbow Dash in flight in the top center of with a rainbow trail behind her and her aura mark, a tri-colored lightning bolt of red, yellow and blue that come from a white cloud. “Without Rainbow Dash's race to defend Fluttershy's honor, the first sonic rainboom wouldn't have happened.” Twilight then clicked the next remote and the slide changed to add a picture of Fluttershy about the same age to the left of the picture of Rainbow Dash, granted Fluttershy looked to be two years older (as Fluttershy was two years older than Rainbow Dash), with several small animals with her aura mark in the corner, a collection of three pink butterflies, “Fluttershy might never have discovered her love of animals.” Twilight then click the remote again and a picture of Applejack as she was at the time when Rainbow Dash performed her first Sonic Rainboom, while she looked out of the window at her uncle and aunt’s home towards Sweet Apple Temple with three apples in the corner of the picture. The picture of Applejack was to the right of the picture of Rainbow Dash, “Applejack might never have realized that she belonged on her farm.” There was another click of Twilight’s remote that changed the picture to one of the same with Pinkie Pie as she looked up with rainbows in the pupils of her eyes with her hair puffy for the first time as she was the same age as Applejack, with her aura mark of two blue balloons with a yellow one in the corner, directly under the picture of Rainbow Dash, “And Pinkie Pie might never have decided to leave hers.” Twilight clicked the remote to change the slide again to another copy of the picture but with Rarity, as she was at the time next to a large boulder cracked open and revealed a wide array of gems of various colors, with here aura mark, a collection of three sapphires located under the image of Applejack. “It must be hard to imagine Rarity without her sense of fabulousness and with her recent opening of two new boutiques both here in Chantalot and in Manahatten, with plans to branch out farther.” Twilight then clicked the remote one more time and the slide was replaced with the next one in the series which was like the previous one but had in the left corner, under the picture of Fluttershy was an image of Twilight as she was at the time, her aura mark, purple six-pointed star that seemed to rest on an inverted white six-pointed star surrounded by five smaller white stars, and a recently hatched Spike. “But it's even harder to fathom what my life would be like.” Twilight the placed the remote down and walked from the podium to be in the center of the stage before she spoke again, “Without the very first sonic rainboom, I might not have gotten into magic school. Celestia mightn't have taken me on as her apprentice or sent me to Magiville to meet my friends. And the most powerful thing about aura mark magic that I found is the connection I share with them.”
While Twilight spoke she looked at the audience stand in the lecture hall. As her eyes pasted she could have sworn she spotted a woman with familiar purple hair that was done in a slight ponytail with streaks of light purple and pale grayish aquamarine. Twilight continued to scan the room she stopped for a second and looked back to where she thought she saw the woman and she was not there. “But, um…” Twilight froze and tried to collect herself. After she put the thought in the back of her mind she turned to the podium and levitated to herself her note cards and started to shuffle through them to find when she currently was in the lecture, which was actually quite far in the lecture. After she found the note she searched for. She skimmed it and returned to the lecture, “The real question about aura mark magic is who it seems to affect.” Twilight continued her lecture.
The next day, Twilight and Spike had left the Magiville train station and started their walk to their home, the Castle of Friendship, “Starlight Glimmer?” Spike asked after Twilight had finished the story about what she saw or thought she saw in the audience part of the lecture hall during the last part of the train ride home.
“I was sure I saw her, Spike.” Twilight continued as the two arrived at the Magivillie post office to pick up their mail, before they headed home properly, “But when I looked back, she was gone! I'm just worried what she could be up to.” Twilight handed the mail to Spike to go through as she could not seem to focus.
Spike went through the mail with a shrug off his shoulders and a comment, “Nothing good, I bet. I heard she wasn't very happy the last time you saw her.” Spike sorted the mail halfway through his comment, most of it was ads that neither Twilight nor Spike cared for, a few requests for Twilight to endorse a company’s product or service which Twilight would not due on principle, some fan mail, his recent order of comics, a check of her share of the revenue from Rarity’s ‘princess dress’.
Before the two left, “Forcing everybody in her village to have the same aura mark wasn't right. We had to do something!” Twilight pointed out as they turned to the door.
“Wait, you got a message from your friends!” one of the postal employees said, a female Skyborn with blonde hair and golden atypically oriented eyes, said as she hovered to the two and game the note in question.
Spike took a sniff of it, “It’s from Rarity. " He was about to open it but stopped as he saw looks from Twilight and the employee. "Perhaps we’ll open it back at the castle.” Spike said as he mixed with the rest of the mail that he did not place in the post office's recycle bin or in the basket for ‘Return to sender’.
“Good call, Spike,” Twilight said as they exited. In the background the postal employee headed to the back to clock out, her shift complete, “but there’s still the matter with Starlight.” Twilight was heard as the same postal employee left the post office.
Once they were outside and back to their track home, “Well if it were me and I had enslaved a village and was driven back, I’d plan and come back for revenge.” As they walked and were almost to the Castle. Spike noticed that Twilight had stopped with a slight panic on her face. The dragon knew what he had to do, “However, Starlight is not me, maybe she was just really interested in your lecture, you did say it has been a while and maybe she thought long and hard about what she did and is almost ready to make amends.” Spike knew he fooled no-one, but he had to state that possibility.
As they finally got to the door, Twilight gave a sigh, "Honestly, Spike. I'm not really sure what I saw." Twilight knew that this was not a denial, at least not one that either she or Spike would believe which the dragon's slightly closed eyes and crossed arms indicated. However, Twilight was able to gain some comfort from this all as she remembered one key thing, her friends. "But as long as I have my friends, I know everything will be all right. So what does the letter say?" She asked as she opened the door for her and Spike.
Spike opened the letter as he walked in and cleared his throat, " It says, ‘Dear Twilight, The map called Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Dashie and I on a mission at Midnight Castle after you left to the station for the guest lecture Princess Celestia asked you to do. We would have sent this to you through Spike, but we are needed to leave as soon as possible and don’t know where you keep your dragon fire candle. We'll have to address that when we get back. We used the mirror portal to get there. Can't argue with the efficiency of it, especially since that's what we used the last time. We should be back in a day or two at most. We’ll share stories when we all get back. We wish you the best of luck with your lecture, Rarity'. Well, that was nice of them. Maybe if we gave each of them a dragon fire candle we wouldn't have missed it. But a kind gestures all the same." Just then Spike burped up a stream of green fire and another piece of paper. He then picked it up and read it, "It's the result of Moondancer's audit of the lecture." Before Twilight could ask, "Other than when you thought you saw Starlight, which Moondance deemed a natural break in the lecture, you did extremely well, maybe you should consider becoming a professor yourself, 'Professor Sparkle' has a nice ring to it."
Twilight had a short laugh at the idea as she and Spike put everything down at not far from the door as one of her bewitched blooms came to put the stuff where it belongs. Her a professor at Princess Celestia's School for the Gifted. Yet, it was a much need release of all the tension she has been feeling following the lecture. Once she took a breath to finish the laugh, "Maybe I was just more stressed about that speech than I thought." Twilight then started to the throne room, which had the circular table that the map that has been sent her and her friends on several missions thus far and thrones for her friends, which counted Spike.
As Spike caught up with her, "Yeah. That sounds better than Starlight Glimmer coming back with an evil plot for revenge."
Twilight laughed as she opened the door, a small smile on her face, all the while she looked at Spike. "Well, when you say it like that, it does sound kinda silly." Twilight
Once the doors where opened, Spike's eyes narrowed in horror as he saw that the two were not the only people in the castle, there was an intruder, who sat at the table in the throne room in Fluttershy's throne, which was denoted by a depiction of three pink butterflies, “Or totally true!” This caused Twilight to turn and see the unwelcomed and uninvited guest.
Twilight did not mistake the female intruder who sat in Fluttershy’s throne, with her feet in brown boots that went just short of the knee on the table and a smug grin on her face as she leaned back with her head against her arms. She had purple hair was done in a slight ponytail with streaks of light purple and pale grayish aquamarine, her eyes were Persian blue, Starlight Glimmer. However, she was not dressed liked she when Twilight met her in the village, which was a gray long sleeve shirt, pink vest, purple long skirt dress and black stone focus gem shaped like a bar. Instead she wore a shorter dress that went past the knee, near the bottom of her left side were two streams of two different tones of light blue that taper to a four-pointed star a lighter shade of purple than the dress with a long sleeved magenta shirt with a pink jacket that sleeves covered over most of shirt with golden trim. On her left shoulder was a metal guard with a purple four-pointed star on an inverted white four-pointed star, with a sash that was made of two sashes of two different tones of light blue. On her forehead was a focus gem, unlike the black bar-shaped one she wore before, it was purple gem cut to look like a four-pointed star, “Welcome home, Princess Twilight Sparkle!” Starlight said as she sat up and levitated a scroll and sent a blast of turquoise magic to it. The scroll then floated to just under the chandelier of memory gems made from the roots of the Golden Oak. The scroll then sent another blast of turquoise magic at the table. This cause the table to project the map.
“What are you doing, Starlight Glimmer?” Twilight asked as she stepped forward to the table, her hands glowed ready to cast a combat spell. Spike close to her heels.
Starlight laughed as the scroll fell to the ground, “I'd tell you, but why ruin the surprise!". She then levitated the scroll back up and after she wadded it into a ball, threw it at Spike and Twilight, "Won't be needing that anymore." The crumbled scroll missed the two and rolled to the floor. The two then prepared to fight, Spike gave a few huffs, ready to give Starlight a taste of dragon fire. However, before they could act the map started to send rings of white towards the empty space under the roots. All the while a large sphere formed. As the sphere formed several circles with stars within them appeared on it and once the sphere fully formed, the circle started to spine until the stars were aligned, all the while, the sound of an army of grandfather clocks tick-tock was heard. Once the circles were aligned the sphere's bottom opened and began to form a vacuum. While nothing was initially pulled into the suction, Starlight cast a spell that allowed her to levitate and float into the suction. "See you around!" Starlight proceeded to laugh as she was pulled into the opening. Once she was out of sight, the sphere closed and then clasped upon itself imploded silently into nothing, and left Spike and Twilight confused at what happened and what to do.
"Where'd she go?" Spike asked while he looked that where the magical sphere was before he looked at the map.
Twilight's eyes were intentionally on the map after the sphere imploded. She had scanned for anything, maybe her own Aura Mark would pop-up somewhere, maybe where Starlight would be, Twilight had refined her teleportation spell over the years. "I don't know, Spike, But we have to find out!" As she continued to search the map, the fact that it was still there was not lost on her, something was off, something that the Tree of Harmony sensed was wrong.
However, she was so engrossed with the map and looked for the smallest clue about Starlight and her current location, that she did not notice that Spike went to see if the scroll could provide clues until she heard the dragon's voice, "I guess we could start with this."
Twilight's eyes opened wide in terror as she turned to see Spike bend down to pick up the scroll. "Don't touch IT!!!" Twilight's order came too late as Spike had the scroll in his left front claw. Then from the scroll came a blast of turquoise magic that hit the map and caused it to repeat the same process that led to Starlight's disappearance into the previous sphere, all the while all that could hear was the tick-tock of an army of grandfather clocks. As Twilight and Spike were pulled into the vortex they screamed, frightened about what could happen and the unknown they were about to face, only to fall silent when the sphere collapsed upon itself and imploded into nothingness silently.
Elsewhere in the castle, a tome with a cross of Twilight’s aura mark and sun that looked like a yin-yang of red and yellow on the cover gave a very dull glow.