The Alicorn Warrior

by iAmSiNnEr

Act I - Chapter 1- Discovery and Revelations

It might have been a valley of little more than rock and dirt in the sweltering sun of a Badlands afternoon, but that didn’t stop the local populace from flourishing.  Dragons, kirins, and ponies alike wandered the valley floor, exploring a marketplace made up of similarly varied vendors.  There was no law to break in the Badlands, so many of the products sold would have been confiscated by the border patrol of most countries.  Not that it mattered - anypony desperate enough to come here had been banished from the League of Nations, led by Equestria, and so couldn’t cross the border anyways.
This was not so for a group of six ponies and a dragon walking in one end of the marketplace.  Many of the existing shoppers ignored them; one or two opportunistic ponies approached them, believing them to be new banishees, from their disheveled appearances.  They declined all the ‘help’ offered, though, and shopped around for a few minutes before huddling together outside a cafe that served enchanted drinks.

"Ah don't think she’d be here, Rainbow,” Applejack muttered, glancing nervously around the valley; there was something about this place that put her on edge.  “This place is just screaming dangerous to me.”
"Well, it’s the best lead we’ve got so far,” Rainbow answered, also glancing around nervously.  “This place is on my nerves too- but at this point, it’s probably the only place we haven’t looked.”
“And the first place we’ve been to that doesn’t appear on any map,” Pinkie scowled, her mane hanging uncharacteristically flat against her neck.  It’d been doing that a lot.  “I feel like a party wouldn’t be welcome here.”
“It took us the better part of four years to find this town,” Starlight grumbled.  “What’re the chances Twilight is here?”  She paused.  “Yes, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy, who had been trying to gain her friends’ attention in the least attention-grabbing manner possible, flinched at the sudden attention.  “Somepony was talking about being unable to see a match with ‘Sparkle’ at the hotel over there.”  She pointed a hoof.
“A match?” Rarity asked.  “What kind of… match?”  She spoke the word with a certain flair of distaste.
“That’d have to be a gladiatorial battle,” Starlight scowled.  “We already know those are pretty popular around here.”  She glanced at Rainbow.  “Dash, were there any arenas in the area?”
Rainbow shook her head.  “Nope.  I can check again, though.”
“Let’s hope that’s not necessary,” Applejack muttered, and stepped slightly aside to stop another patron on his way past them, into the cafe.  “Hello, Sir- we were interested in watching the match, but seem to have lost the info.  Could you point us to it…?”
The patron, a grey earth stallion with a grumpy facial expression, snorted.  “We don’t have an arena here,” he stated.  “Too flashy.  It’s twenty leagues due east.  All the brochures are at the Arena.”
“Got it, thank you,” Applejack nodded her head thankfully, and withdrew; the stallion continued on his way.  She turned back to her friends, the pinkest of which now had a slightly fluffy mane.  “Here’s hoping we’re not chasing shadows… again.”
Starlight nodded.  “Celestia help us.”

Starlight Glimmer checked the clock on the wall once again, and scowled at the door.  “Lesson one, and you’re late,” she grumbled.  “Unless…”  She shook her head.  “No, you wouldn’t have forgotten about it.  And you wouldn’t be avoiding me either, I think.  So why half an hour…?”
Finally tired of talking to herself in an empty library, she trotted out.  Perhaps Twilight had meant to refer to a different one of the Castle’s four separate libraries- something which made no sense to her, since they could be made into a single, larger library without issue- when she’d told her where her first lesson would take place.
But as she checked the various libraries, they were all empty.
As she walked steadily up the passage from the fourth one, Starlight couldn’t help but feel like something was…  off.  She checked the kitchen as she passed; empty.  She knocked on Twilight’s bedroom, no response.
She pushed the door open.
Empty.
Where had Twilight gone?
She cantered down to the Cutie Map.  That would tell her.
She was feeling distinctly uneasy.
She quickly cast her spell on the map.
Nothing.
Twilight was out of range.
Which shouldn’t have been possible- this thing could find anypony on the entire continent!
She had just barely drawn in her breath to call for Spike when it happened.
She felt her Cutie Mark respond to the magic of the Map.  It was calling her.
Seven cutie marks formed over the map- no, six; the last one was Spike’s head.
Five of the six Elements of Harmony were represented in the floating symbols.  Twilight’s Mark was absent, having been replaced by her own.
The seven symbols spread out and started circling the entire map.
The entire map.
At the same time, to Starlight’s horror, Twilight’s throne darkened, the purple gemstone fading to grey.
Spike trotted in, stifling a yawn.  “Mornin’, Starlight,” he greeted.  “Got a call from the…”  He trailed off, staring at the map.
Starlight looked back at it.  “Twilight’s gone.”
Right at that moment, Twilight’s cutie mark appeared, right on top of the Castle- then whisked off towards the badlands, and faded into nothing about halfway there, before repeating.
“Is that a clue?” Spike asked, jumping up on the table to look.
“Spike,” Starlight muttered, half-stunned.  “Take a letter.  To Princess Celestia.”
It took Spike about three seconds to retrieve a quill and parchment from his mini-throne.  “Got it.”

Princess Celestia arrived in a flare of bright golden light at about the same time as Applejack, the last Element Bearer to arrive, trotted in the door.  “What in tarnation-?” Applejack began, staring at the Cutie Map spectacle.
“Twilight is gone,” Starlight stated, without preamble, before looking up at Princess Celestia.
Princess Celestia looked…  vulnerable.
“What-?” Starlight asked.  “Princess Celestia?”
Princess Celestia took a deep breath, tears rolling down her face.  “I…  I made a horrible mistake,” she stated.
“What is it?” Rarity asked.
“I…” Celestia began.  “I banished Twilight last night.  F-For using time magic.”
Starlight blinked.  “That-!” she began, but Celestia cut her off.
“That was a terrible mistake,” Celestia declared.  “And-!”  She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“That was me,” Starlight stated.  “I used the time magic, and nearly destroyed Equestria in the process.  If you want to banish me instead, go ahead.  Everypony knows I deserve it.”
Celestia stared for a second.  “And compound my mistake?  Absolutely not!”  Her voice had some steel in it as she refused, but that quickly disappeared again.  “When I did it, I was…  influenced.  I don’t know what did it- banishment is a last resort, and time magic has a habit of punishing its own abusers, so I don’t usually enforce it.  But something- something made me banish her.”  She sighed towards Starlight.  “Meaning, even if I hadn’t made such a mistake, I would never banish you for time magic.”
“Well, can’t you just, you know, un-banish her?” Rainbow asked.
“I can’t,” Celestia stated.  “The magic of Equestria doesn’t know her.  That’s why the Element of Magic has gone dormant.”  She gestured towards Twilight’s throne.  “She can’t enter our land unless the magic of the land knows her.  And the only way to teach it about her…”  She took another deep breath, visibly steeling herself.  “I…  I have a mission for you.  For all of you.”  She looked across them.  “I…  I will make you seven Wardens of the Land.  Your mission…  is to find Twilight, and bring her back.”
“But if she can’t cross-?” Starlight began, leaving the rest unsaid.
She nodded.  “The…  the only way to teach the magic of her once again…  is for a Warden of the Land to touch her whilst standing on Equestrian soil.”  She looked across them.  “That is your mission.”
“That sounds simple enough,” Spike stated.  “Where is she?”
“I have no idea,” Celestia informed them.  She looked at the map.  “That…  looks like a clue, but she could be anywhere out there.  One moment.”  She closed her eyes, and her horn glowed brightly.

Six mares and a dragon stopped on the approach to the massive arena they’d finally located, after almost two full days of hiking east.
“Listen,” Rarity, who had signaled for them to stop, hissed.
They all went silent, and listened.  They could hear a chant coming from the distant arena.
“Spar-kle!  Spar-kle!  Spar-kle!”
It repeated over and over.
“Well,” Rainbow muttered.  “We’ve found something named Sparkle.  That’s new.”
Everyone looked at her.
She looked back at them.  “Let’s get moving!” she barked, and took to the air with a shockwave of rainbow energy.

Draw out the fight, Twilight told herself.  Give them what they want.  They’ll pay better.
She really didn’t like participating in these fights, but Celestia had thrown her out, and she had been unable to reach her friends- it was all she had left.
And even if she had been able to reach her friends, it wasn’t like she could cross the border back into Equestria.  Her biggest regret was that she had never been able to say goodbye.
She expertly dodged the massive dragon’s smashing claw, and snarled at it.  “Close one,” she stated aloud, even though it was actually nothing of the sort; she’d only made it look like it was one.
The spectators roared.  They loved the style she’d developed, where she’d make it look like she was losing, before becoming ‘desperate’, turning the tide, and winning by the slimmest of margins,  She only rarely killed or permanently injured her opponents; usually, she was able to knock them out…  which had the extra effect of looking like she was only barely strong enough to defeat them.
Over the noise of the spectators, she heard a sudden boom in the distance.  A sudden, familiar boom.
She dodged the next swipe on autopilot, sending a magic pulse out to scan the area around the arena.  That could not have been a Sonic Rainboom.
Her pulse got back.
It was.
Twilight’s game had suddenly changed.  Her friends- the other Element Bearers- must be nearby.  And, for their own safety, she could not allow them to interfere with this fight.  Which, she knew they would try.  Just like she would, had she walked in on Rainbow fighting a gladiatorial battle in the Badlands.
Fortunately, that was fairly easy.  None of them had entered the arena, or its immediate airspace, just yet- so a simple dome shield over the entire thing was enough.
She flapped out of her draconian opponent’s reach.  One of his wings had been chopped in half during a fight with another dragon the month before, rendering him flightless.  She gazed at him, sized him up…  and realized that taking into the air had been a stroke of genius.  Her goal had shifted to ending the fight as quickly as possible, without letting on that anything had changed- and the old dragon had attempted to follow her into the air, only to crash right back to the ground on his injured wing.
“Ah-Hah!” she announced, flying higher to avoid his fire breath and conjuring magic missiles with which to bombard him.  The discovery of a crippling weakness would always bring a swift end to a fight.
He still put up an impressive fight.  She made it look like she had to maneuver hard to avoid his fire breath, flapping at least three times as often as was necessary for the maneuvers she was performing.  The crowd roared, chanting her name continuously.  She felt a couple of impacts against her shield, then another signature she’d memorized so long ago.
Starlight Glimmer had come as well, and was trying to find a way through her shield.
She used a rapid sequence of completely ineffective magic missiles to shroud herself in confusion.  While they were ongoing, she layered her spellwork, teleporting a quill, parchment, and ink to her.  She scrawled just two words on the parchment, before teleporting all three away once again…  though the parchment went straight to Starlight, rather than back to where it had come from.
Starlight was, after all, the only one that might have a chance of penetrating her shield.

Wait.
-Twilight.