Equestria, the land of ponies. A place where all races, be it those who fly through the skies, gallop along the ground or cast the most amazing magic lived in harmony. And it wasn't just a place where ponies lived, for other creatures also called this land home. From the strong and traditional buffalo, to the almost extinct but powerful jakhowls, while even a young but energetic dragon lived in and loved the land of Equestria.
It was a place where happiness and excitement were around every corner. Where those who were kind, loyal, generous, honest, hopeful and courageous could live in harmony. And up above the kingdom, high in the clouds of Equestria, three such ponies were flying through the air. They were pegasi that only had one location on their minds as two more pegasi joined their flock as they soared down towards the ground. Coming out of the clouds, they found themselves on a road full of other ponies heading in the same direction: Canterlot.
The royal capital of Equestria was full of different ponies. The streets were packed with booths and games that made it look like the Fantasia Festival had come early, but this event had a different name. This was the Friendship Festival. A festival celebrating the many friendships of Equestria and all they had done to make the kingdom a better place.
The main street was the very center of the party, where ponies were adding the finishing touches to the party. But as a pony placed a large jelly castle on a table, something flew down and bounced off the delicious desert. "Whoa!" The young dragon named Spike yelped as he landed next to the table, his arms full of different scrolls. "Scuse me!" He said as he ran through the crowd, "Dragon on the move!" He accidently dropped a scroll and blew some fire at it, the flames morphing into a claw shape that picked up the scroll without burning it before returning it to the pile. "Important princess documents comin' through!"
He kept running, having trouble carrying many scrolls in his claws, only for them to start glowing gold and flew out of his claws. "Need a hoof?" He heard followed by a laugh, making him look up to see a young alicorn by the name of Shining Soul smiling down at him. She was flying just above him, the scrolls floating around her without much issue.
"Thanks!" He continued running through the town, Soul flying behind him. And as they did this, they heard a pony speak up.
"Whoa! Everypony from Manehattan to Saddle Arabia is here!"
"I know, filly!" The ponies next to her stated, "We almost couldn't book a stable!"
The first pony nodded. "Princess Twilight must have her hooves full with this giant Festival!"
"Are you kidding?!" The second laughed, "She's smart and organized and cool under pressure! There's nothing she can't handle!" Soul laughed at hearing this, knowing that her teacher was likely having a serious panic attack at that very moment. She and Spike continued through the city, seeing many ponies they knew continuing to work hard on the area. There were the Wonderbolts, ready to do an awesome aerial performance, there was Cheese Sandwich and Wild Smile, both working to entertain the kids that couldn't wait for the festival to start. There was Trixie, who had slipped back into her old performer sense to prepare an amazing fireworks display. Starlight was also helping her out, waving to Soul as she passed.
But no ponies were working harder than the ones up at the castle: Rainbow had just started busting clouds while Pinkie was making a bunch of balloon animals. Fluttershy was directing a bird choir that would be performing while Applejack was working on making sure all her family's products were ready for selling and Rarity was preparing the stage for the big concert that would be taking place that night.
She waved at them all as she entered the castle with Spike. They sprinted through the hallways until they reached a certain room as Spike said, "Thanks Soul. You wanna come in and give me a claw? Might be helpful to learn how princess do things, you know, in case you ever have to do this sort of stuff."
"Thanks, but no thanks." Soul smirked. "If I do become a princess, I wanna put it off for as long as possible. Besides, Mira and I have an appointment with a jam tart booth."
"Fair enough," Spike chuckled before opening the door and heading inside. "Okay Twilight, got all your charts and graphs." Soul didn't hear Twilight's reply as the door slammed shut, the filly heading back outside.
"Hey Soul!" Pinkie cheered, "Any balloon animal you wanna see on stage?"
"Can you do an elephant?"
"Easy!" She grabbed a green balloon and blew it up, soon shaping it into the form of the animal. "Got any hard ones you want?" Soul laughed at that as she looked up at the sky, seeing Rainbow continue to blow through the clouds.
"Hey," she raised an eyebrow, "I thought Flash and Heart were supposed to be helping her."
"They were," Rarity replied as she neatly tied a bow. "But they got called to do...something with Springer and the other Royal Knights. Even Lightning got asked to head over to the training area."
"Huh," Soul spun around at this, "I wonder what it was?"
Flash Sentry, Grand Hoof, Iron Core, Ruby Scarlet, Heather Bloom, First Aid, Skybreaker, Tidal Wave and Cold Steel were all sitting in the seats of the training arena. Along with them were Springer, Lightning Blitz and the two squires known as Fire Heart and Jaden Chalice. They had all been asked there by Solid Script, who had sent them all a message asking for help in testing his latest creation.
"How much longer is he gonna be?" Heart asked, "We're gonna miss the start of the festival!"
"Calm down Heart," Flash responded, "I'm sure Script will be here soon enough."
Ruby nodded, "Patience is a virtue that every Royal Knight must master in order to be ready to serve the land." They continued waiting for about half a minute before Ruby's eyebrow twitched, "Though I wish he would hurry up and get here already."
They all laughed at this just as somepony ran into the arena. "Sorry I'm late!" Script yelled as he carried a metal briefcase in his magic. "I had to do a few final tests before we were ready to see what my invention can do."
"And what is your invention?" Lightning asked, Script smirking as he conjured a table and placed the case on it. The knights and other heroes got up and began to gather around the table.
"Behold," Script opened the case, showing off six gems. Five of them were about the size of a marble, dark red in color, with one side being triangular and forming a pyramid-like shape while the other side was completely flat. The sixth one was the same shape as the others, only it was twice the size and colored blue.
"Crystals?!" Iron asked, "You brought us all the way out here for something I could get in the Crystal Empire?!"
"Wait..." First leaned down at this, "There is something odd about these crystals. They are...charged with some kind of magic."
"Got it in one," Script nodded, "I call them the Link Gems. Using powerful Rune Magic embedded into the crystals, anypony who wears this will be able to link their magic with the other wearers. This means they can unify their magic into a single, concentrated, blast."
This statement caused the knights' eyes to all go wide. "Are you serious?" Grand asked, "If we use these, we could combine our magic?"
"Yes. I started working on them after...Lightning's birthday." Script slowly said, most remembering what had happened then. It had been several months since the last Trial monster had been destroyed, and there hadn't been another attack. It seemed Flash's message he had got from the future was true, though he hadn't told them about it. "When I heard about the other battles, I realized the reason they were so hard was because your attacks weren't strong enough to do enough damage in a single hit."
"Except for Flurry's," Flash spoke up. "She was able to destroy Trial-T's power source in a single blast."
"Outshined by a foal," Cold added, "That's embarrassing." He turned to Flash, "Especially since you've basically fought all of them."
"Oh, shut up!" Flash barked back.
"Anyways," Script interrupted, "If you had a way to combine your magic, you could have merged it into a single blast and completely vaporized the Trial. And thus, I invented these. If they work, I could also make some for the Royal Guards since they usually end up getting overpowered by...pretty much everything."
The knights shared a glance at this, only for Heather to ask, "So how do they work?"
"Simple," Script pointed to the larger gem, "This is the master gem. This is where all the unified power is sent to. Whoever wears it will be able to fire the supercharged blast. I'm hoping to one day make it so any gem could do that, but for now, I just want to get it to actually work."
Skybreaker hummed at this, "Whoever uses this gem is gonna need to be able to handle a heck of a lot of power. If they're not able to withstand and control it, they could end up destroying themselves from the backlash."
"He's right," Grand nodded before turning to his apprentice. "Flash, think you can handle it?"
The Knight of Friendship shined a big grin, "Who do you think you're talking too? If I can handle the Sacred Light, I can handle anything." The others rolled their eyes at this as Flash grabbed the large gem and took out his sword, placing it on the blade. Like a magnet, the gem attached itself to the metal before completely vanishing. "What the-what happened to it?"
"That's its incognito mode," Script replied, "When it's not in use, it'll disappear from sight and weight. A little something extra I decided to add." Flash nodded as he turned to the other knights, "Now who else will be testing them?" He glanced at Springer, "Sorry. I don't think it'll work with aura."
"That's cool," Springer waved his paw, "As long as I get to watch, I'm fine."
"So that just leaves five more," Jaden commented before turning to his mentor. "Are you gonna try and use it?"
"I don't see why not," Ruby picked up a smaller gem and placed it on her Crystal Promise. Like the master gem, it vanished as well. Then, Cold, Iron and Grand also took one and placed it on their Celestic Gears, leaving only one left.
"Any takers?" Script asked, "Lightning maybe?"
Heart raised his wing at this, "Can I give it a try?" They turned to him as he ignited his hoof. "My powers aren't exactly the same as the others, since they came from a Nirik. I just thought...maybe I could test it to see if it's compatible."
"Not a bad idea," Grand chuckled, Flash nodding as Heart took the gem and placed it in his hoodie, the crystal vanishing as the six stepped up. There was a target on the other side of the arena, ready to be blasted away by their knight's combined attacks.
"So how does this work?" Ruby asked Script.
"Just channel your magic and focus on the gem. That should activate it." They nodded and got into a battle stance, the unicorns channeling their magic while the others focused on their weapons. Heart imagined flaming up and his body formed into his fire form. The gems all appeared and started to glow, absorbing the magic being generated. Those energies began to flow out of the crystal and slither through the air toward Flash, who was holding his sword forward.
The magic flowed into the gem and began to supercharge Lightbringer, Flash feeling the heat radiating off the weapon. "Oh yeah!" He laughed as the power built, growing to a level Flash usually felt when he was in his Shining Guardian form. "This is gonna be good."
"Ready?" Script asked, Flash nodding. "Then let her rip!" Flash pulled the sword back before swinging it as hard as he could.
"Flash Cutter!" The energy exploded off the sword, the attack now being six times as powerful as it usually was. It burned the ground as it flew five feet above it and when it struck the target, it exploded. And by exploded, it completely disintegrated into a cloud of smoke that filled the entire arena.
Over at the festival area, a giant tower of smoke shot up into the air, making the ponies working all turn to it. This included Twilight and her friends, the group rolling their eyes as they knew Flash had clearly been doing something overkill.
Back in the arena, the cloud vanished to reveal the ponies and jakhowl all covered in soot and ash. Flash coughed out some smoke, the pegasi soon flapping their wings to clear the smoke. It was here that they saw that the target was completely vaporized...along with the wall behind it.
"Well," Grand commented as he began brushing the soot off of himself, "At least we know it works." They all nodded as they looked down at the gems, each of them trying to remove it, only to find it stuck. "Why won't it come off?"
"Locking mechanism," Script replied, "Its so they don't fall off you if you get hit super hard or if your opponent tries to remove it by force. There's a spell that deactivates it, but they also come with a swapping function so you can swap who has the master gem and who has the normal one. Though there may be a few side effects to that function, so best not to mess with it until I've done more tests."
The Royal Knights raised an eyebrow at this as the gems all vanished. "Well," Ruby spoke up, "Since you can't see them, I guess we can leave them where they are until after the festival is finished. We're all supposed to be on guard duty for this."
"She's right," Grand added, "And I doubt we'll need these for the festival, but it's better to have them and not need them." They all nodded and began to make their way out of the training area. Heart and Jaden running ahead for the festival.
"So how's Jaden been doing?" Flash asked Ruby once they were out of earshot.
"He's like a sponge. Soaking up anything and everything I tell him. I bet it won't be long before he's ready for a certain test," she turned to Flash. "What about Heart? You thinking of giving him the test soon?"
Flash shook his head at this, "Eh...I'm not sure."
"Are you two talking about the Great Test? Isn't it a little soon for that?" Springer chimed in, only for the Royal Knights to all laugh at this, "Hey! What's so funny?!"
"The Great Test isn't the only one Royal Knight Squires need to take," Grand chuckled.
Flash nodded in agreement. "And as much as I want Heart to take the test, I don't think he's ready...yet." He watched the colt as got closer to the main street, thinking about how far he had come since first becoming a Royal Knight. "He's got heart...but there's a lot left for him to learn."
Before anypony could say anything else, they started hearing something. Music. Springer rolled his eyes at this, "Sounds like we're missing a musical number."
"I'm not in the mood to sing anyways." Flash commented, "Come on, let's go see how the festival is right now."
They soon walked up to the event, now seeing many ponies singing and enjoying themselves. Flash spotted the Apple Family over by the food area, Rogue the thestral also there and using his sonic voice to turn a bunch of apples into cider and sauce. They walked through the city at this, passing by a petting zoo that Ace and Mira were at, the two little jakhowls laughing until they spotted Springer and ran over to him.
Flash looked up at the sky at this and spotted the Wonderbolts, who were all zipping through the clouds to destroy them and make a clear sky. He then spotted Derpy, who was wearing a party hat and enjoying a delicious muffin. "Hey Derpy!" He called out as the music continued, "So what's the song about?"
"I think Twilight might be a little stressed," Derpy finished off the muffin as Flash laughed.
"What else is new? So the others are trying to calm her down?" Derpy nodded as she started another muffin, "Got it. Thanks." The knights soon ran through the town, the knights following him as they got up to the castle. There they spotted a large crowd gathered around a stage, Flash smiling when he spotted his parents and sister at the back of the group.
They turned to see him walk up, only for something to shoot straight up into the air. It was a large cake, which arced around before falling right on a certain pony. Flash's eyes went wide before he started pushing through the crowd, arriving at the front just in time to see Twilight get buried by the cake.
"Ouch." Flash flinched, the cake soon melting into a puddle of pink slime. The ponies at the front of the crowd stepped back to not get covered in the stuff while Twilight's head popped out the center of the mess.
"Pinkie!" She screamed, turning to a massive cannon. As she did this, a lit candle suddenly fell from the sky and landed on her horn.
As it did, Pinkie's head suddenly popped out from the cannon. "Oopsie!" She yelled as she saw what had happened. "Guess my easy bake confetti cake cannon needs a little bit more fine tuning!"
Twilight let out a horse-like neigh before groaning, only for Flash to help her out of the cake. "Things seem to be going well."
"Funny," Twilight moaned as Flash wiped as much of the cake off her as he could. Heart and Jaden, jumping on Grand's back to get a better look, laughed at this before Jaden turned to Heart.
"Your mentor's kinda awesome, isn't he?" Heart raised an eyebrow at this, "I mean...Ruby's awesome too, but Flash was able to handle the power of six ponies into one attack and didn't even seem phased by it."
Heart smirked at this, "Yeah. He is pretty cool," he looked down at Grand. "One of the coolest, right?"
Grand chuckled, "Indeed. But as I've told you before, he wasn't always that way. He had to work to become the pony his is today and it wasn't an easy time."
"What was Flash like when he was our age?" Jaden asked, all of Flash's friends around them hearing this.
Grand rubbed his chin in thought, "When he was your age, Flash wasn't exactly the most popular pony. He was a well known thief and pickpocket, not that it was by choice. Almost everypony in the city knew him and saw him as a criminal, so they didn't have the best opinion of him." They looked back at Flash and he and Twilight talked, the ponies around them laughing at whatever they said. "If you had asked anypony in Canterlot to describe Flash in one word...it would be loser." This got several snickers from the ponies around them while Heart frowned.
"Yeah," Lightning laughed, "That's a pretty apt description of him when he was younger."
"Guess not much has changed," Iron added.
"Oh, come on!" Heart replied, "Flash isn't a loser!"
"Nope," Iron cackled, "Total loser."
Heart stared daggers at the pony, looking ready to explode into fire. "Be nice," Heather chimed in, "Of course he'd be defensive of Flash. He's a lot like him."
The others nodded at this, Heart's eyes going wide at this. "Well, he's a lot like Flash was as a kid," Grand spoke up, this making Heart's face drop.
"You think I'm a loser?" The others turned to him, Grand grimacing at this.
"I didn't mean...what I meant was-"
"Excuse me." They all turned to a pair of ponies in black suits and shades, walking on either side of a mare. As they did, a civilian pony gasped.
"It's her. Songbird Serenade!" The three ponies began to make their way through the crowd, catching the attention of those near the stage.
"Songbird Serenade?" An earth pony stallion gasped, "Is it really her? It is, it is!" The pegasus stepped up as her bodyguards kept the crowd at bay. She was a white pegasus with a mane and tail that were one half black and the other half two different shades of yellow, her mane styled in a way that covered her eyes and made those looking at her wonder how the heck she could see. She was wearing a black jacket and a large pink bow on the back of her head.
"Hiya," she smiled at the group, "I'm lookin' for the pony in charge." As she said that, Photo Finish suddenly appeared and started taking pictures as the song-pony posed. "I need to set up for my sound check."
"Ms. Songbird Serenade?" Twilight ran up, looking a little flustered. "Um, I was just going to check on you." She let out a series of nervous laughs, "I'm Princess Twilight, and sorry about the mess." She started rubbing her leg, unaware she was covering her hoof in the one bit of cake batter Flash had missed. "I'm usually not so-" She stopped when she waved her hoof around and accidently fired the cake batter and Songbird, hitting her jacket and causing the ponies around them to gasp.
"Caked in cake?" Songbird asked, clearly not upset by the stains of her cloths.
"Heh heh," Twilight let out another nervous laugh as one of Songbird's bodyguards used his radio.
"You have visual on buttercream?"
"Visual confirmed," the other nodded, "Go for cleanup." He reached up and flicked the cake off of her, Flash trying not to break out into laughter. Luckily, or unluckily, something occurred that made his laughter completely vanished. A crack of thunder.
The ponies in Canterlot all turned to the sound, seeing a massive black cloud that had suddenly appeared in the sky. It was almost as big as the city itself, now moving in a way that made every weather expert there realize this was not a natural phenomenon.
"Storm clouds?!" Twilight exclaimed, "I ordered perfect weather!" She turned to the friend she had put in charge of clearing the skies. "Rainbow Dash!"
Flash stepped in front of Twilight, knowing what Rainbow was about to say. "Uh...I...don't think those are storm clouds." And as Twilight looked back at them, a pitch black zeppelin appeared out of the cloud. It flew around the city, letting out a funnel of black smoke from its exhaust.
"Oh!" Pinkie cheered, "I bet those are the clowns I ordered!" But then the zeppelin came to a stop and began to float downward, looking ready to land on the very edge of the city cliff. The Royal Knights all rushed forward, several of them realising what the ship was about to do. The bottom of the zeppelin crushed some of the columns and other structures as it landed, the knights knocking away any debris that flew towards them, a piece of the column falling onto the balloon animals Pinkie had made. "...Or definitely not the clowns I ordered."
Everypony grimaced at this, wondering what the heck was going on. The Knights continued glared at the ship, none not realizing that the arrival of this ship could spell the end of Equestria as they knew it.