//------------------------------// // Preparing for round 2, Pt. 1 // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Eternal // by AlphaToothless95 //------------------------------// It had been who knows how many hours since Lightning Dust, Short Fuze, and Rolling Thunder had left and taken a good amount of Midnight's army to track down Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. They haven’t reported back yet but Twivine suspects that they will soon.. there’s a part of her that wants them to find them but another part of her.. doesn’t want Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy to get hurt.. but that part was Twilight. That part was weak.. she’s strong. ..So why does she care if Twilight’s friends get hurt?! And why can’t she stop these concerns? These.. feelings.. They surely just belonged to Twilight and were just leaking over to her weren’t they..? Or was she actually starting to feel something that she didn’t think was possible..? Empathy.. No.. NO. That’s foolish, she was a destroyer, a conqueror, a killer.. nothing more. She lived to serve Midnight and carry out her will. Speaking of which, Midnight’s voice startled Twivine, causing her to jump back and look up at her, seeing the tall, dark, and scary alicorn right in front of her. “Twivine..” She says and Twivine, after calming herself down, responds to her. “Yes, my Queen?” Twivine asks and Midnight walks past her and gestures for her to follow her. “Walk with me for a bit.” She says and Twivine nods and follows. “I wanted to.. address something.. about you.” She says and Twivine starts to get nervous. “O-Oh..?” Twivine asks, trying to keep her voice calm, despite being scared. “Have I done something wrong?” She asks and Midnight thinks about it before shaking her head. “It’s not about something you’ve done.. it’s about what you haven’t done.. in a manner of speaking.” Midnight says and Twivine looks confused before Midnight continues. “Your behavior has left me feeling a bit.. uneasy around you. Your lack of action has left me unable to put your loyalty to the test.. and now.. I don’t know if I can really trust you anymore.” She says and Twivine starts getting more nervous, not knowing where Midnight was going with this. She backs up when Midnight starts walking towards her until she’s backed up into a wall. “W-What are you going to do..?” Twivine asks, actually fearing for her life in that moment as Midnight glares down at her. Midnight puts a hand on her shoulder and she starts shaking uncontrollably as she closes her eyes and prepares for whatever Midnight plans to do with her. “I’m giving you an assignment.. follow me.” Midnight says as she lets her go and Twivine calms down and follows her, being lead to the throne room where the Washouts were currently waiting for them, having three survivors/hostages with them from their attack on the village. Twivine is now nervous again as she sees this, already having a feeling where this was going. “Lightning Dust here tells me that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy escaped but their new trainer had been killed.. and she’s managed to put a tracker on Rainbow.. but she’s too out of range for us to detect the signal or it’s being blocked by magic.. we only need two hostages to lure her back out..” Midnight says as she walks to the hostages after they’re thrown to their knees by the Washouts. “I’m going to let you decide which one will die.. and you will have the honor of killing them.” Midnight says and Twivine frowns but then nods and walks forward a bit, looking down at the hostages. “P-Please.. please Princess Twilight.. you don’t have to do this..” One of them says and Twivine frowns more but makes the blade anyway and holds it towards the one who spoke. “You.. because there’s one thing you.. and a lot of other ponies can’t seem to accept..” She says as she gets closer to the injured, frightened pony. “Princess Twilight.. is gone.. there.. there’s only Twivine now.. nopony else.. just.. me.” Twivine says as she raises the blade and tries to bring it down into the pony’s skull.. but something’s stopping her.. just as she manages to bring it down a little bit, her other hand catches her arm and she continues struggling. She yells in pain, physical and mental as the inner struggle becomes too much and she falls to her knees with her eyes closed. “Oh Twivine.. this is very.. disappointing.. sorry to tell you but this was a test.. and you failed.” Midnight says as she aims her magic at the back of her head, preparing to kill her. “This wasn’t exactly a test that I wanted to pass.” Twilight yells as she opens her eyes and turns just in time to direct Midnight's aim towards the Washouts, the magic blast that she releases hitting them in the process. Twilight then tries pushing back against Midnight but the older alicorn was also stronger than her. “Oh.. and another thing Midnight.. you can’t fire me or Twivine.. because we QUIT!” She yells before kicking one of Midnight’s legs from under her then flipping her over herself and throwing her out of one of the castle’s windows. She then unties the hostages and teleports them to safety before running out of the castle or whatever abomination Midnight had turned it and the rest of Canterlot into. In the process, she finds the crystals that contained all the information she needed about Midnight, her army, and her plans.. even her weaknesses. She saw Midnight place the data in those crystals after she created them and locked them up. She takes them then continues causing destruction which draws the villains to her. Good.. she has a LOT of built up rage that she desperately needs to release. They all charge at her and she instantly flys up and slams down on the ground with a furious scream, knocking them all back with a powerful wave of magic. Astelle, Daybreaker, and Nightmare Moon are the first ones to recover. They all attack her at the same time but she dodges, blocks, and counters all their attacks, even letting them hit each other, making them become more and more frustrated with her and each other and less synchronized in battle. They spend more time arguing than fighting after a while. Once they’re all down, Twilight uses them against the other villains until she’s suddenly wrapped up and brought to her knees by purple magic chains that start to shock her, making her scream in pain. She looks up to see Midnight land in front of her and walk up to her, a blade coming from her gauntlet as she raises her hand up. “At first I was going to make you watch as I killed all your friends but now.. I’ll make Twivine take turns with me torturing them.. and I will kill. Them. ALL.” Midnight says and that pisses Twilight off to no end. Glowing purple markings appear on her body and her eyes start glowing purple as well. She yells in pain and anger as the glowing increases until it’s too bright to see a single thing, the resulting explosion knocking out most of the villains but of course, Midnight was one of the ones still conscious. She gets up to see that Twilight is gone.. along with her plans and all that was left in that area was a giant crater with purple fire in some areas. Her eye twitches and she starts laughing maniacally until she suddenly screams in anger, the scream echoing across the mountains until she turns to all the villains with a terrifyingly angry look. “Do whatever you must to find their location! Once we find them, kill who you have to except Twilight and her friends.. they’re MINE..” Midnight says and they all frantically nod and run off.. Midnight was pissed.. but she would get her revenge soon.. and Twilight would die.. and so would any creature that would even think about being loyal to her.. She had underestimated Twilight this time.. But never again.. Castle of the two sisters, an hour later As everyone continued arguing about a plan and what to do, Fluttershy was sitting by Pinkie Pie who was still comforting her.. while Rainbow Dash had left the conversation a while ago.. anyone could see she was still grieving.. she was hurt, angry, and she had a lot of guilt on her shoulders.. and all those things could make her do something rash or turn her into something she’s not. Nopony wanted that but at the same time.. they were all angry after something like this.. and scared. And they had every reason to be since Starlight told them that Midnight could supposedly use Alicorn empathy to use Twilight’s connection to her element to find the location of the others.. meaning they couldn’t stay in one place for long.. so why haven’t they found this place yet? “Look, I get it! We’re all scared and angry and sad but we can’t just do nothing! ..We have to take the fight to Midnight for once!” Sunset yells and Applejack, Spike, and Tempest agree with her. “That’s suicide! She has an army and war machines and all we have is a small, barely functional militia! At least compared to her army! We can’t just attack! We need a plan, one that won’t fall apart and one that she can’t guess or maneuver around!” Starlight says and Sunset is about to argue with her until they hear a knock and the cutie mark crusaders are at the entrance, looking nervous. “Hi girls.. what’s wrong?” Starlight asks and they look at each other then back at everyone else. “Ummm we found someone..” Scootaloo says and Sweetie Belle continues for her. “But.. you probably won’t be happy to see her.” She says before Applebloom fully opens the door and they step aside to allow.. Twilight to walk in. They all instantly go on alert and get ready to fight until she holds her hands up in surrender. “Girls, girls! Wait.. it’s me.. it’s Twilight.” She says and they all look at Applejack who narrows her eyes, looking her over for any sign of deception and letting her element do its thing until she goes wide eyed and starts to smile. “Well I’ll be.. it really is you!” She says and they all look shocked, smile, then run and hug her, welcoming her back. Trixie and Tempest smile at this and walk over to them. “We didn’t think we’d ever see ya again sugarcube..” Applejack says and Starlight pulls back, still looking shocked but relieved. “How.. how did you escape?” She asks and Twilight looks hesitant to talk about it. “Hey, if you’re not ready to talk about it, that’s fine.” She tries to assure her but Twilight holds up a hand and tells her it’s ok before breathing in and out then explaining. “Apparently, Midnight had noticed strange behavior from Twivine and suspected it was me returning.. which it was.. she tried.. 'testing her loyalty' by having her kill one of the survivors they were gonna use to lure out Rainbow Dash.. I couldn’t let her do it.. so I stopped her and caused destruction to slow them down after I saved the survivors..” Twilight explains and they all are confused by one thing she said. “Why would she try to lure out just Rainbow Dash..?” Fluttershy asks. “Because Lightning Dust put a tracker on her during the battle. Right now it’s out of range to send a signal to them or the signal is being dampened by magic but they’re eventually going to catch on.. where is Rainbow Dash anyway?” Twilight asks and they all frown, especially Fluttershy. “It’s.. probably for the best to just leave her alone darling.. who knows what she’d do if she saw you?” Rarity says and Twilight sighs until they all hear footsteps and look towards the entrance to see Rainbow Dash standing there, her hair messier than ever and her features revealing that she was harboring so much pain, anger, guilt, and sadness. All Twilight wants to do in that moment is hug her and tell her how sorry she is for everything.. but she didn’t wanna push things. “H-Hey Rainbow..” Twilight stutters out, nervously rubbing her arm. Rainbow Dash doesn’t respond but she does grow a firm look before starting to walk closer. “L-Listen, I’m so sorry about everything that you all went through and I know I’m mostly to blame for it so if you don’t.. If you don’t want to be friends anymore.. I’d understand but I hope you can forgive me someday..” She says but before she can say anything else, Rainbow Dash suddenly embraces her in a tight hug and Twilight is shocked. “R-Rainbow-“ Twilight tries to say but Rainbow interrupts her. “Just shut up while I’m hugging you..” She says and Twilight chuckles a bit then hugs her back. “I.. we really missed you Twi.. it’s good to have you back.” Rainbow says and Twilight smiles and sighs. “It’s good to be back.” She says before remembering the previous conversation. “Oh and one more thing..” She says before using her magic to remove the tracker from Rainbow Dash. “Ummm, what is that supposed to be.. and how did it get on me.” Rainbow asks and Twilight explains what she had told the others and Rainbow Dash looks like she’s about to explode. “Lightning Dust..” She says with a huge amount of venom in her voice. That legitimately scares everyone else. “Please tell me that when you escaped, you at least brought something we can use.” She says and Twilight smiles and nods before walking to the table and placing the crystals that she stole on it. “Ooooh, what do they do? Do we just throw them at Midnight and then BOOM, she explodes? Oh oh, or do they all turn into some sort of food that Midnight is allergic to?! Or do they-“ “Pinkie!!!” Twilight yells but when she does, it sounds like her and Twivine yelled at the same time.. plus she got so aggressive and angry.. that’s not a good sign. “Sorry.. Pinkie.. whatever it is you THINK they do.. it’s quite the opposite.” Twilight says before she breathes in and out and looks at the crystals. “This is gonna suck..” She sighs and everyone looks confused and Starlight stops her before she can do.. whatever she was about to do. “Wait, I can feel that the crystals or the information inside them is sealed with some sort of.. magic lock.. what are you about to do to unlock them..” Starlight asks and Twilight frowns. “Midnight locked them.. with dark magic.. and the only way to unlock them is with her magic or something similar.. and the only one here who’s magic closely matches Midnight’s..” Twilight says but before she can finish, Sunset continues for her. “Is Twivine.. so.. what? You wanna risk letting that monster out again? What happens if she takes control..? You’ll be too dangerous, we won’t be able to stop you.” She says but Twilight corrects her. “I only need to let a small amount of her power out to undo the spell.. then we’ll finally have a way to stop all this..” She says but they still protest against the plan. “Look, it won’t be too much and I won’t hand over that much control.. just enough to undo the spell and then I’ll come straight back. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Twilight says and they all hesitate but then agree and back down, trusting Twilight to keep her word. She then closes her eyes, breathes in and out, and aims at the crystals again, readying her magic.. and Twivine’s. This is gonna hurt. She fires Twivine’s magic at the crystals, using it to undo the spell Midnight had put on them.. meanwhile she was grunting in pain the whole time and everyone grows more concerned when her eyes are like Twivine’s but instead of her irises being red, they were dark purple. “Twilight, that’s enough! Stop! It’s hurting you!” Spike yells but Twilight doesn’t listen, she just continues trying to block out the pain and it soon becomes manageable enough to speak. “No.. no I can do this.. just.. a little.. more!” Twilight yells as the spell starts to unlock and soon she finishes destroying it and her eyes turn back to normal as she falls down, nearly passing out but Rainbow Dash catches her. “That was stupid.. and kinda awesome Twi.” She says and Twilight chuckles, causing her to chuckle too. “I’ve seen you do way more reckless things Rainbow.” She says, smirking at the pegasus who smirks back and holds her head high. “Guilty. As. Charged.” Rainbow says before helping Twilight up. They all look to see the information being displayed above the crystals. They’re amazed and shocked by this.. and are even more so when they see a few specific things. What they’re building, the Legion of Doom's conversation with Midnight, their plan to turn them against each other, Midnight killing Flim and Flam, her and Astelle's fight with Celestia and Luna.. and Midnight grabbing Celestia’s head and shocking her with a huge amount of magic until she disappears.. then collecting remnants of her magic to make Daybreaker. They all frown as the hard truth hits them.. Celestia was really gone.. They then see something else.. Midnight was talking to.. someone in a mirror.. they see it in a few more displays too.. until finally they see she’s talking to a small purple alicorn.. They all look shocked when they realize who it is. “Solaris.. she’s still in there somewhere.” Twilight says, starting to smile and get excited as she realizes Midnight’s biggest weakness. “That’s why she wanted to turn us against each other, why the elements can defeat her.. they can possibly free Solaris!” Twilight says as she paces back and forth excitedly. “This is perfect! All we have to do is use the elements on Midnight long enough for Solaris to get free, then she can possibly destroy her! Everything will be ok.. we’ll get justice for Celestia and the rest of Equestria.” She says and everyone looks at each other then at her and she notices. “What?” She asks and Starlight steps forward to answer. “I get you’re excited but there’s just one teeny tiny problem.. how are we supposed to do that? Midnight is protected by her army and.. our forces are just barely functioning, not to mention the other creatures have returned to their own kingdoms along with Cadence, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart, and Luna is in no shape to do.. anything right now.” Starlight says, startled as Luna's voice comes from the entrance. “On the contrary.. I’m in a good enough shape for taking on Midnight and her army.. my sister wouldn’t want me to sit, feeling nothing but guilt for something I couldn’t prevent.. so I won’t.. not anymore.” Luna says and everyone smiles at her and Twilight hugs her, prompting her to smile and return the hug. “Welcome back, Twilight Sparkle.” She says and Twilight thanks her before Sunset asks them something. “So we’re going with my plan: take the fight to Midnight?” She asks and they look at each other then nod. “I have a few ideas.. just give me tonight to figure out a plan and we can possibly go tomorrow.. make sure you’re well rested just in case too.” She says and everyone nods and walks out but Luna stays behind a bit longer to voice her concerns to Twilight. “Do you truly believe that Solaris is still in there.. waiting to be saved? That she has been this whole time?” Luna asks and Twilight thinks about it before looking at her and nodding. “I have to believe so.. if I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt.. then Midnight had already won. So we have to have a little faith.” She says and Luna nods before walking out and after a few seconds, Spike walks in, looking nervous. “Oh hey Spike, thought you would’ve been trying to get some rest.” She says and he shrugs and walks over to her. “I thought about it but then I decided.. I.. could I stay and help you with the planning, or something..? If not, it’s fine, I just thought maybe I could try to keep being your number 1 assistant.. like old times.” He says and before he can ramble on, he feels Twilight put a hand on his shoulder and he looks up at her to see a smile on her face. “You’ll always be my number 1 assistant Spike.. but sure, you can help.” She says and he smiles and hugs her, prompting her to hug back before they both get to work at putting together the perfect plan to ensure a bright future for all of Equestria.