//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10: Corona's effort 
// Story: The Northern Crown 
// by CoronaBorealis 
//------------------------------//

Corona slowly walks through the halls of the coliseum as he makes his way back to the benches, his hooves echo in the hall since everypony is out in the booths and seats. He feels his heart practically beating out of his chest as he feels like he is about to have a panic attack. Due to his lack of attention to his surroundings he bumps face first into Topaz and falls to the ground, rubbing his muzzle as they both groan in unison.

"Corona!... watch where you're trotting buddy," he says as he stands up and shakes his head to shake off the stun, "You ok?..." He looks down at his friend and sees him breathing heavily with eyes of fear as he holds his head for comfort. Topaz moves his hoof to his head and this brings Corona out of his trance as he looks up at him with his scared eyes, "T-Topaz?..."

"What's wrong Corona?... you're turn on the stage is almost here..."

"I-I can't go... up there Topaz..." Corona says in defeat as he looks at the floor, feeling unworthy to talk to him from how heroic he was when his friends were endangered but he is cowering on the floor, afraid to follow up such a show of magic that would only occur once in a millennium. 

"Do you have stage fright?..." he says with concern as he tilts his head.

"No it isn't the stage... I just..." Corona slowly stands up but still has his head tilted down towards the ground, "How am I supposed to follow what she did?... I always knew she was incredible but... lifting the sun by herself?... ponies have thought such a feat to be impossible to pull off! and here she does it in the coliseum!" his face turns in to that of a frown in spite towards himself, "No magic I know would even approach the first spell that she did!... I'll humiliate my mother and father! The crystal ponies will think I'm a joke and not worthy to succeed my-" his rant is abruptly interrupted with a smack on his head which makes him yelp in surprise and feel his head where it was hit, "What the hay Topaz!"

"You need to stop Corona" he says firmly as he looks him in the eyes. "Yes her performance was a spectacular one, but that absolutely does not mean that you can't be just as amazing."

Corona stops to listen to his words and he soon looks up at him, "I can?..."

"Don't think I don't know about all the effort you put into practicing your magic, I'm sure that effort will pay off," he smiles and puts a hoof on his shoulder, "Corona... you've always been there to give me advice... you have wisdom beyond your years. I still remember the words you told me when we first went to school as friends," he says with a warm smile.

His words ring in Corona's ears and he soon looks up at him from the floor, "You... do?... I don't remember..." 

He chuckles softly, "And that just proves my point, you give the best advice a pony could ask for but you don't listen to your own words." Topaz puts a hoof back on his shoulder in a comforting manner, "I was feeling nervous about my classes and whether I would perform well enough... and you told me "If the ponies you love believe in you, you should do the same!"

The statement surprises him and he remembers the conversation they had a few years ago, and how happy he made his friend after giving him those words. "R-Right... I guess I did say that..." he says as he rubs his head bashfully.

"You really brightened my day when you told me that... and... I think those words are what gave me the confidence I have  to this day... That gave me the courage to act when my friends were in danger... because I was able to believe that I could act," he says with a happy smile that takes Corona by surprise. "I have you to thank Corona, and I'm sure Celestia would also agree, you always give praise to others and their accomplishments, it's time you did the same for yourself."

Corona takes a few long moments and he looks down at his friend's arm, "But... I don't have any accomplishments like you and Celestia..."

Topaz chuckles audibly and he moves his hoof back and cocks it with confidence, "Then go make one for yourself!"

Corona gasps in surprise at his proclamation and his mouth opens a little to respond, but after a few more moments it morphs into a smile and he grins from ear to ear and he cocks his hoof like Topaz, "Right!"

"I'll be watching your awesomeness from the stands! If you give up I'm going to kick your flank after it's all over" he says as he bumps his shoulder and walks by him to go back to the spectator's stand to continue watching the event.

Corona looks back down at his hooves and he chuckles softly, "What would I do without you Topaz..." he says as he looks back up and walks back to the waiting area, puffing his chest out a little more than he did before now that he had the confidence boost from his friend.



*****



The sound of constant talk among the ponies watching, Topaz squeezes through the rows of ponies and eventually reaches his mother and sits down next to her, "Hey mom I'm back!" 

She smiles and looks down at him, "Welcome back, did you congratulate Celestia?" she asks cheerfully.

"Yeah! and I happened to literally bump into Corona on the way back! He looked so nervous so... I tried to help him" he says with a look of concern as he hopes that his words truly reached his friend. He looks down at the remaining fillies and colts that have yet to go up and he sees his friend and he feels his heart beating a little quicker in nervousness, "You can do it Corona..."

Iron Shield looks at Topaz and pets his head, "You're a good friend son, he needs ponies like you in his life if he is going to be a great leader like his parents."

Topaz looks up at him and smiles as he pets him, "Thanks dad! I try my best to help him like he helps me, I just hope he will finally get a chance to shine."

Iron chuckles softly and hears the announcer taking the stage after a performance, "Well... it looks like it is time to see if that moment is now."

Topaz soon looks back at the stage and listens closely to the announcer, "And next we have the pride of the Crystal Empire, the son of the great warrior King Diamond and the mother of peace Queen Harmony, I think I can say with confidence that we will be in for a display just as impressive as our princess Celestia! Introducing prince Corona Borealis!" he proclaims with confidence, causing the spectating crystal ponies to rise up and roar with cheer for their prince, rivaling the equestrian cheers for their princess before.

Corona gulps nervously but takes a deep breath and sighs, trying to remember the words of confidence from his friend and he slowly rises up from the bench and walks up onto the stage, his heart racing as adrenaline pumps through his body. Reaching the center of the stage he feels all of the eyes that are now on him and it makes him feel puny. His body shakes as he tries to maintain his composure. 

"Calm down Corona, Calm down!" he yells at himself in his mind as he tries to clear his mind of his fears, "Just... remember your practice..." 

The wind begins to flow around Corona as he channels his magic to his horn and a silver light surrounds his body, "Come on Corona...." The light around him grows brighter and after a few moments of focusing his magic he quickly opens his eyes, "Teleport!" he says as he vanishes in a flash of light and it makes the spectators gasp in surprise and look around as to where he has gone.

Corona soon opens his eyes and he sees that he is standing on the ledge of the royal booth, he looks around in surprise and looks around to see that he really teleported and he jumps and laughs happily as he jumps back off the ledge and falls down to the ground, causing ponies to stand up in fear for him getting hurt, but as he is about to hit the ground he teleports and appears with a skid on the center stage. Seeing him being fine it makes ponies sigh in relief and stomp the floor to applaud his display. Corona feels the happiness of his success of pulling off the teleportation spell and it causes him to completely phase out the crowd around him and his magic surges higher than it has before. Celestia looks down at him in awe, seeing his horn glowing again she watches from the edge of their booth with her hooves curled over the rail. After a few moments she sees him cast another spell and soon clones of him appear all over the stadium.

Celestia's eyes widen in wonder as they are more clones than she created for her demonstration, feeling strong wind blow against her mane as she watches Corona demonstrate his new spell that she's never seen before. "How could he create so many clones!?"

Her comment makes her parents as well as Diamond and Harmony chuckle. Celestia looks back at them in confusion, "What is it?"

Helios looks down at Celestia, "He's not creating clones of himself, what he's doing is something far more impressive that most ponies won't even realize," he says as he walks over to the rail and looks down at the stage, seeing all of the different Coronas taking on a variety of happy poses, seeming like he doesn't have a care in the world as the crowd watches in awe.

"If they aren't clones then... what are they?" she says curiously as she looks down at the stage, feeling confused as they clearly look like clones.

"They are after images Celestia," he says while he lifts his hoof to pet her head. Diamond nods in agreement "That's exactly right, I'm surprised you were able to see that," he says with a cheeky grin.

Helios's face turns to that of a scowl as he looks back at diamond with a vein popping out his forehead, "What are you trying to say!" he yells at him. Harmony looks at Diamond with an unamused face as she bumps his side with her hoof, "Stop instigating Helios, it's unbecoming." 

Diamond chuckles and nods to her, "Sorry... It's just amusing," he says looking at her, expecting her to laugh, only to to see that she is glaring at him with her still unamused face. Her sky blue eyes feel like they are piercing his soul and he gulps nervously, "H-Heh..." 

Harmony glares at him for a little longer and she soon smiles and looks back at the stage, "It is somewhat amusing."

Helios looks at her in shock and his head sinks in defeat, "Aww come on... I thought I had someone on my side for once." He takes a few moments to regain his composure and he looks back at the stage, "Anyway they are after images, they are an illusion that is created when a pony moves at speeds high enough to travel back and forth from multiple places and make it look like they are actually multiple ponies. At his age... he shouldn't be able to move at such speeds, in fact only us four and a few others are able to do the same thing, we can also see those movements as well while normal ponies aren't able to see. Now that you are an alicorn like us you may be able to see little glimpses of his movements."

Celestia looks back at the stage and she stares at one of the after images and her now sharper eyes are able to pick up little flickers of the image disappearing but soon reappearing, "B-But how is he doing that!..."

Diamond chuckles softly, "My guess is that this is a magical outburst and so doing all of this by accident, probably triggered by his happiness after performing the teleportation spell at the start of the performance. His magic is flaring up due to the positive emotions and is unknowingly enhancing his body's physical limits by using his magic, but it doesn't seem like he even knows what he is doing."

Harmony nods in agreement, "He probably doesn't realize that he isn't even doing a teleport spell to begin with, but is just running on pure adrenaline now, but moving at this speed at his age can do serious damage to him, he needs to stop soon."

As if on queue the images soon stop appearing and Corona soon appears in the middle, breathing heavily as he feels the whiplash from the intense physical exertion he brought upon his body, nearly collapsing on the ground when one of his hooves gives in.

The ponies of the crowd look in confusion and mutter amongst one another. "I get that the clone spell is a difficult spell but... to exhaust him this much?" one of the nobles states to another, 

Another nods slowly, "Our princess lifted the sun and even transformed and yet was still able to stand. This spell is impressive.... but rather underwhelming after what Princess Celestia unveiled for us all."

"Still though, at least he is dedicated to his studies so he may turn out to be a promising prince, but I'm not sure of him inheriting the throne of his parents," a noble states to give Corona some credit but still criticizing his inability to follow up Celestia's performance.

Corona's ears perk up in shock as he looks up as his heavy breathing continues, he hears all of the ponies questioning him and he feels panic starting to weigh down at him again. He soon stands up and looks around with an alarmed look as the voices seem to sound louder to him. 

Celestia and Topaz notice and they move up to the ledge and try to shout to him but the voices of all the other ponies blocks out their voices. Celestia has a worried expression as she sees her friend panicking, wanting to rush to him to comfort him but knows that she can't disrupt the event in any way as it would anger the nobility and shine a negative light on herself.

Diamond looks down at his son with concern but a stern expression remains on his face, "Maintain your composure son..."

Celestia watches as Corona falls back on his flank as the area goes dark around him, seeing the dark faces of ponies laughing condescendingly at him. Seeing the hallucination brings a look of fear on his face. 

The condescending comments the nobles are making ring in Topaz's ears and he grits his teeth in anger and he glares over at them, "Shut up you stuck up ponies! You don't know anything about Corona!" he yells at them which catches them by surprise and they look at him with shock and confusion, only to then turn into scowls.

"How dare you speak to a pony of noble descent in such a way!" one responds with spite in his words at the young colt.

Topaz grits his teeth and ignores their words as he opens his wings and flies off before his father can grab him, "Topaz get back here now!" Iron shouts at him as he fails in grabbing him.

Ignoring his father's order he flies swiftly down to the coliseum floor and skids on the ground and runs up to the stage and looks at his distressed friend, "CORONAAA!" he screams as loud as his young lungs could manage.

The sudden voice shouting at him knocks him out of his hallucination and his pupils widen in shock as he looks over to the source of the voice and sees Topaz standing by the stage, the sudden action surprising Celestia as well as their parents.

"SNAP OUT OF IT AND SHOW THEM WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF! OR I WILL PERSONALLY COME UP THERE AND MAKE YOU DO IT!" he says with a firm voice of concern that also scolds him a little. 

Corona listens to his words that pierce his panicking mind like a sharp blade as he opens his mouth to reply, but before he says anything he slowly stands up and looks over at his friend. 

Topaz looks around at the other foals and he sees one of them has a big and durable rubber ball that they used for one of them used for their demonstration and he picks it up onto his back, "Remember the game we would play with our playing ball?"

"T-The one where we kicked it as hard as we could at each other?..." Corona replies with an uncertain voice.

Topaz nods slowly and tosses the ball up to him onto the stage and it lands in front of him, "Remember how much faster our bodies and reflexes got??"

Corona looks at him for a few moments and he looks down at the ball and slowly picks it up with his hooves, "But... that was just a game... you think that that would be enough to impress everypony?..."

Topaz chuckles softly and winks at him, "Yes of course! Do you remember what our goal was?"

Corona's eyes widen at the mention of it as he puts the pieces of what he is saying and he soon smiles as he slowly stands up and floats the ball up, "Right, thanks Topaz," he says as Topaz hugs him just before two knights escort him from the stage.

"Good luck buddy" Topaz says as they take him back to the stands.

Corona looks down at the ball and takes a deep breath and lets it out as he floats it up in front of him and cringes as he tries to focus his magic into preparing what he thought was his teleportation spell. Corona's eyes close as he calms his mind, "Our goal..." The area grows dark around him once again, but this time he doesn't hear laughing ponies, instead it is only him in complete silence. His eyes soon shoot open and he tosses the ball up high in the air directly above him and he turns around and as the ball get's within a few feet from the ground Corona kicks it as hard as he can, sending the ball flying across the coliseum at incredible speed, he then shoots magic through his body to do what he thinks is his teleportation spell and he zips across the ground and catches the ball before it hits the ground, a feat of speed that catches the nobility's attention and it makes all of the ponies in the crowd cheer when they realize what happened.

Hearing the cheers of the equestrian and especially crystal ponies makes him smile happily as he kicks the ball again and zips behind it again and hits it high in the sky, reappearing behind it and striking it hard, making it slam on the ground, "The goal... to be fast enough to catch our own ball" he says with a look of satisfaction, but his look soon morphs into that of exhaustion and his eyes close as he falls from the air towards the ground. Seeing this Diamond quickly stands up and appears under his son and catches him carefully and lands on the ground as Corona falls limp on his back, his body exhausted from the incredible exertion on his body.

"That was a valiant effort son..." he looks up at the crowd and sees that some are cheering but others aren't as impressed with his performance as it only seemed like a few teleportation tricks, nothing that a unicorn scholar couldn't pull off with a few years of education at the school of magic.

"Truly not something to be compared to Celestia's performance, perhaps he hasn't inherited his parent's great magic," an Equestrian noble says as she stands up to leave.

"Perhaps they aren't as powerful as our King and Queen say Adara," her husband says as he stands up to leave with her, "Rather disappointing if you ask me."

The rest of the nobility are all escorted out first guarded by royal knights before the peasant ponies are let out of the stadium.

Harmony watches all of them leave and then turns her attention towards Diamond and Corona and she smiles, "Good job my little gem... you got over your fear and tried your best, you may not have won the affections of our subjects yet... but you've made me proud, as well as your father.

Celestia sees Corona limp on his father's back and she looks down with a regretful expression, seeing this Virgo stands next to her, "What is troubling you Celestia?" 

"I... I wasn't there for him... he was always there to help me practice and feel better when I messed up on a spell, and when he needed me most I wasn't there to support him... And yet Topaz didn't give it a second thought, not fearing the prospect of getting in trouble in the slightest, I guess that means that I'm not as good a friend as he is..."

Virgo smiles warmly and kneels down with her four hooves closed under her to move closer to her little filly, "That isn't true at all Celestia, you have an appearance you need to maintain as royalty, Topaz doesn't have that restriction."

"I know mother... but this was supposed to be his moment to shine... like it was for me," she states with a downed voice as she looks over her new form, "But the nobility insulted him... they don't even know how hard he works to be the best he can be..."

Virgo listens to her words and she feels them hit her a little, feeling a little upset at the nobles for their claims against Corona as well as his parents since they are close friends to her.  "It simply isn't his time yet... I know it's hard on him and he wants his chance to shine brightly like you did, and that time will come someday. He only needs to remain patient and he will have his moment."

"But as each day passes, his self esteem grows lower and lower... he has little confidence in himself, and it breaks my heart as his mother that I haven't been able to alleviate him of his depression. I wish I knew what to say to make him realize that he is just as special as the ponies around him..." Harmony interjects as she stands to leave with them.

Virgo puts a hoof on her shoulder and gives her a comforting smile, "Give him time Virgo, I'm sure that he will climb out of his depression. And he has wonderful friends that will help him get stronger as a pony and a leader," she states as she looks down at Celestia, "You and Topaz are very special to him... don't ever forget your friendships because they are your strongest asset."

Celestia looks up at her with her sad face but she soon smiles a little and nods slowly, "Right, thank you mommy."



*****



Adara separates from her husband a little to use the restroom, as she steps inside she locks the door behind her and a green aura surrounds her horn and her eyes turn green with a flame of the same hue enveloping her as she turns into a blackened bug like pony, strange holes dotting her hooves and horn. Her ears perk up and her green eyes glow as she hears a voice in her mind and she nods slowly, "Yes your highness, I was able to infiltrate the event without being discovered, their security is rather pathetic."

She looks at her body in the mirror as she temporarily removes the noble clothing she was wearing, "The equestrian princess is exceptionally gifted in magic, but I think that the prince of the crystal empire will make a better target for your brilliant plan." She looks into her eyes and changes them back into the eyes of Adara and she nods as she is given orders, "Yes your highness... I will keep watch over the royal families, but we will need scouts in the Crystal Empire to watch over the Crystal's royal family as well when the attack comes, they must be there before security is tightened." She stretches out her body before putting the clothing back on and changing back into her stolen form as she makes her way back to the door, "I will be ready," she replies as she releases the spell before leaving to return back to her victim husband.