//------------------------------// // Part 2: Meeting Royalty // Story: MLP: Equestria // by Draconis187 //------------------------------// MLP: Equestria (Ok this is freaky) Part 2: Meeting Royalty Author: Draconis187 Fluttershy woke up at 6 and as much as she tried she woke me up anyway. It wasn’t a bad thing though, I like to get up early, it was the being safe from the First Fleet part I had a hard time getting used to. Fluttershy kept saying how sorry she was for waking me and made oatmeal for breakfast. As we ate she told me her routine of who or what she starts feeding and looking after at this time. The first were the chickens, they looked just like our chickens on Earth. After feeding them, we carried on to bees, then the birds that live in the tree near her cottage, the various insects were next on her list. She helped a new colony of wasps by telling them where to find some of the nearby flowers for pollen without crossing onto the bees territory. There were beavers, racoons, a large variety of birds she took care of. “Thanks, it usually takes me an hour or two more when I do this on my own… thanks” she told me after we finished. She went inside and brought a little sack with her. She turned it out and gave me some of its contents: small round golden coins. “These are called ‘bits’, it’s our currency. This is for your help since you don’t really have a job. I get them from ponies who come either for a pet or bring one of their pets if they are hurt.” “Thanks Fluttershy, it was fun helping you out, it’s a real change of pace for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, Rarity did ask for me to visit the Boutique today”. I said. “I’d hate to keep Rarity waiting, see you soon”. With that her pet bunny Angel hopped on her back and she flew off to go play. I found Rarity’s Boutique fairly easy after Dash showed it to me the previous day. I knocked on the door and entered. She was not on the ground floor, which had a massive number of pony mannequins all wearing a number of beautiful dresses, suits, shoes, a variety of accessories and hats. I called out to see if she was home. “I’m in my room darling, come up. Just follow the sound of my voice”. So I did as I was told. Her room had several pony mannequins, all wearing something, ‘probably her latest line’ I thought, there was a bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. But there was another mannequin that Rarity was working on, hang on … it looks human! “This is what I wanted to show you dear, I’ve been busy making a mannequin for you so I can make some dashing clothes for you”, I could only nod, jaw wide open, “Now that it’s almost finished is there anything you’d like me to make?”. Okay hearing this I could only think of the Assassin outfits (Brotherhood to be exact). She gave me a pencil and paper and I began drawing the design. I modelled the colour scheme after my own colourations. The cape for instance that would go over my left shoulder was mainly white with a black trim. I included the hood because it would not be the same without it, the same robes that would reach my knees, boots and the AC symbol buckle in silver. I coloured the boots black and where there would be red on the original robes I drew black and the rest was white. After I had finished I showed it to Rarity, she just gasped. “Why darling this looks absolutely fabulous (see, even in another universe this outfit is boss), I must start immediately, I’ll bring it to you when I’m done. Now go, scoot, I need to be by myself so I may start”. When she finishes it, it will be EPIC. I could only grin. I decided to head to Twilight’s, I eventually found the library after getting lost, twice. It was called the Golden Oaks Library, what shocked me was that it was built inside a tree! It had red windowsills; a red door; a telescope attached to a platform that was at the top of the tree; I could see it also had a balcony as well. As I entered I saw her small dragon helper: Spike. He was purple, his belly was a yellow-green colour and his spikes were a darker green and as far as dragons go, he was quite small. He was carrying a stack of books higher than he was tall, just before I was about to offer my assistance Twilight saw me and came down the stairs. “I’ve been through every book here and I can’t find anything on other universes. Are you not finished packing Spike? Oh, Princess Celestia and Luna are coming to meet you, today!”. Wait, WHAT?! Both of this universe’s monarchs? Now I was worried how they may react to a stranger from another universe. Twilight could clearly see my reaction. “Don’t look so worried I’m sure they’ll love you, come they wanted to meet at the edge of the Everfree Forest so as not to draw a large crowd since this is a very informal visit, we best hurry though”. The journey was too long for my liking, Twilight said she had been using her magic to search the library and so could not teleport us there. So we had to run as fast as we could to get there on time. We were a little late arriving to the meeting point, but there they were: Princess Celestia and her sister Princess Luna. Celestia was completely white but with a slight pink tint, her mane though was a mixture of light cerulean, light cobalt blue, light turquoise and a pale heliotrope and sparkled as if her shampoo of choice is ‘Glitter Glam’ or ‘Star Shine’ (I would laugh if those were names for either actual shampoo or for ponies). Her Cutie Mark was a yellow sun. Princess Luna on the other hand (or hoof) was a dark sapphire blue, her mane was a moderate Cobalt blue but with two different shades. She was smaller than Celestia but still larger than the average pony. I noticed that did not have any form of guard and there was no carriage, which suggested they either flew here or teleported. “HEY!!! GUUUYS!!”, we all looked up only to see Dash flying past waving at us all. Her expression changed when she noticed the two princesses and then she just sped off. Weird. As we got close to the two sisters I could see they were not here for a very friendly chat by the expressions on their faces. I bowed low to show my respect to the royals. “Greetings Michael, I am Princess Celestia and this is my sister Luna, Twilight talked of a human in her last message so both of us decided to come and see you for ourselves”. Celestia said in a very odd tone, it was as if they knew something about me. As I was thinking about this, Luna spoke: “I sensed your presence when you went past my moon, what you were then and what you are now are not the same, so we wish to know your intentions”. Okay, busted but unlike Celestia, Luna was smiling slightly. Twilight gave us all a very confused look. “Princess what are you talking about? I don’t understand here.” Just before I was about to tell them, Dash appeared again except with the rest of the Mane Six, never easy is it? “I was planning on telling everypony what I was but in time, I just wanted you all to know me for who I truly am and not by what I had done in my universe. I guess some plans just don’t work out as we want them to huh?”. So I told about my story on Earth including my poor history with family and friends; a bit about Project Hellfire; the Bleach Protocol and the First Fleet being sent after me; and the most recent part: how I got here. “So then I allowed the First Fleet to catch up to me in a deserted system, but I underestimated them. They killed my friend Icarus, destroyed the Twilight Fleet except for the Infinity and forced me into a corner, I had no choice left so I … I fired the Cataclysm Cannon while fused to the Infinity. How it created the wormhole that sent me here I don’t know, but it was a blessing. The source of the crash Dash heard was probably me and what you saw Luna was the Infinity, I changed from it into one of my other forms in order to reduce the damage the ship would have caused upon landing. I’m sorry for the deception.” Afterwards they only stared at me at this revelation, Fluttershy had been backing away at each part of my story, especially the destructive parts; Dash had her jaw wide open, and Pinkie’s mane went flat. The princesses looked at each other, nodded and turned their attention back to me. Luna’s smile had vanished and she looked just as solemn as Celestia. Celestia spoke. “We understand your reasons for not telling anypony but you can not stay around Ponyville. You are a danger to everypony, as much as you claim to be wanting to help, we can not risk you hurting our subjects in any way. I ask you to please find residence away from any form of town or village until such time I believe you can come back.” I understood Celestia’s concern and agreed to live in the Everfree Forest until they believed I can be among their subjects. Celestia and Luna moved out of the way, revealing the path into the forest, as I turned back, none of the Six could look at me in the eye, except oddly enough, Fluttershy. She looked straight at me with that lovely smile, I wondered what she had planned, but I still turned to face the forest and walked in. I got lost within a few minutes, and it was dark as hell. After I was out of their eyesight I took out my prized halberd to defend myself, because the Starblade’s light would have made me a target. It stood at 6’9” long yet weighed as much as a sheet of paper in my hands and was very well-balanced. It was a present from someone I helped in the past because I lost my original halberd in a previous adventure. It had a crab claw-like tip and had an axe on either side of the shaft under the tip; the axes were serrated and it had a spike on the bottom of the pole. The pole was a navy blue, the blade and tip shone in the sun, or it would have if it wasn’t as dark as night time in this Divine-forsaken forest. I wandered for hours seeking appropriate shelter. I thought I should try change into something that can make a form of shelter, I may have lost my roster but I had to try. I thought of the XS-23 Spider Construction Robot but as I tried to change I got ‘ERROR 37, SYSTEM MALFUNCTION’, ok, now that has never happened before. So I tried my dragon form, but: ‘ERROR 98, SYSTEM MALFUNCTION’ appeared. This must have been what the strange feeling I had meant. At least I had my Starblade and my halberd, so I then tried my magic. Turns out I could not even use some simple lightning and ice effects on my weapons. Nothing, I kept getting an ‘ERROR 404, SYSTEM MALFUNCTION’ message every time I tried. So I was unable to use magic or use my forms, even my mech form was lost to me, the damage I sustained must have been worse than I thought. I felt cold and alone, but I had to find somewhere to sleep. I stumbled across a rope bridge leading to an old dilapidated castle. The rope bridge snapped and fell after I went over, cutting my capability of leaving, I wondered if that was just a coincidence or something else was at play. I entered the castle and saw that it was not the best or the worst decision, the carpeting was in ruins, most of the ceiling was gone, many supporting pillars were broken, cracked or just a pile of rubble. I made my way through the castle making sure that I don’t do any more damage than what this castle already had, I made some stairs to the higher levels of the castle and found what may have been one of the servant’s quarters. I laid my weapons down next the bed I found in the room. It wasn’t too bad: a couple of holes in here and there, the covers were just dusty. I then tried to make the room more habitable: beat the bed down, went down to a pond in the grounds which had collected enough rain water for me to wash the sheets. After cleaning the bedding I went back inside and remade the now clean bed and decided to see the rest of the castle. There was very little left in working condition, this place seemed ancient. I eventually found a room I should have avoided. As much in terms of looks it was not worse off than the rest of the castle, but I saw the remains of some broken, discarded light blue armour. They had an ominous feeling about them, almost like something was watching me. I wanted nothing to do with them and left the room very quickly. As I left the room I realised it was night time already. I had nothing else I could do so I went to my ‘new’ room laid down and went to sleep. As I fell asleep I started to have a very strange dream. I was standing in utter darkness, I could not see my hands in front of my face, I could feel the ground under my feet but when I placed my hand to it, it seemed as if my hand went through it but I could feel as if I was standing on a solid object and yet it was not there. All of a sudden these two HUGE eyes opened up in front of me, they were cyan with cat-like (also could be called reptilian) irises, they were at least 12 meters high! They just looked at me and blinked. I soon heard this weird laughter over and over. I woke up with a jolt, it was morning but I was not in the bed, I was in that room holding my halberd and laid next to the creepy armour! “Michael, Michael!”, wait. That’s Twilight! “Michael darling where are you sweetie?”, Rarity?! “I’m over here!” I yelled to the voices. I then saw my friends all come up the stairs to the room. I was both happy and confused to see them. Twilight had a tiara on her head with a large gem star on top that resembled her Cutie Mark, the others wore gold necklaces with gem versions of their Cutie Marks on them. Seeing my puzzled expression Twilight started explaining. “We were upset by what Celestia said but we got confused by what you said. Are you really what you said you were?”. I nodded as I got up. “The Princess said we could visit but only if we brought the Elements of Harmony just in case, oh we brought you some food and anything else you might need.” They left them outside the castle. Turned out they repaired the bridge to get here. Twilight brought me some books (typical Twilight), Fluttershy brought some cooking equipment, Dash gave me some new blankets, with her Cutie Mark on them, Applejack gave me a whole new bed frame and mattress, Pinkie gave me – big surprise – cake and cookies, Rarity though gave me the Assassin’s Creed clothes I drew for her to make and a full length mirror. I immediately ran in to put them on. I came out feeling very badass, all I needed to do was speak Italian, and have the hidden blades. Everyone was impressed by the outfit and Rarity nearly cried when I told her I loved it and told me if I ever wanted her to make anything else I should just let her know. “So how are you Michael?” Fluttershy asked “Being forced into exile is not unusual to me, I did spend over two years on the run” I responded. “But you mustn’t be on your own, it’s so unhealthy for you!” Fluttershy, you really have a big heart. “So having your own fleet must have been awesome, going wherever you please, now THAT’S the life!”, said Rainbow Dash, she really doesn’t get what I had been through in my universe. “It’s not all sunshine and smiles Dash, I’ve done many other things: I’ve ended many lives and sometimes, in very brutal ways, I’ve lost fights, good folks and in the end in order to save them I had to draw the First Fleet to that system, I never thought that Icarus would stay, so I had him stay on the planet so he wouldn’t get hurt, but I still couldn’t stop them from killing him!!”, with that outburst I slammed the halberd, blade side down into the ground, as it connected with the ground it sent sparks flying. The Mane Six stepped forward and hugged me with tears in their eyes. I let go of the halberd and hugged back, it was good to have friends to talk to. We talked a bit about the other ponies I had not yet met; apparently a local witch doctor lived somewhere in Everfree: a zebra called Zecora; a bunch of fillies who call themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders: Sweetie Belle who was Rarity’s sister, Apple Bloom who was Applejack’s sister and Scootaloo, a Pegasus pony who idolized Dash. They sadly had to leave as Celestia only allowed them to visit for a short time. But before they left Twilight spoke to me. “It’s too bad you can’t come to my brother’s wedding in two weeks, its short notice even to me. We are all helping out in some way with the wedding so we are leaving tomorrow. I’m going to have a couple of stern words with my brother though, I don’t even know this ’Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’”. I just laughed and told her just because she never met, it doesn’t mean she can condemn Cadenza on the spot. “Don’t over think it over too much Twilight, go and enjoy the wedding, bye everypony, thanks for the visit!”. “Bye Darling!”(Rarity), “Cya!”(Dash), ”bye sugarcube”(AJ), and other farewells from the rest as they left. I took their presents in and set up a small kitchen in the original one which at least still had a table. I decided to set up the new bed inside that creepy room. I knew something was up with that armour, that dream was no coincidence. I had some of Pinkie’s cake and waited for the night. The night came and I called out to whatever was responsible for the dream but I didn’t get a response. So I tried again and again for the next few nights, growing more and more desperate each time. Something about the wedding was giving me a chill. One day before the wedding… When night came again I decided to wait for midnight this time around so while I waited I decided to try and see if I can still fight. I broke the old bed and used the wood to make a skeleton, I broke the old mattress and added it to my new dummy so it had some ‘meat’. I took my halberd in my right hand and held my Starblade in my left and I started. I sliced the dummy’s head off with the sword and stabbed the torso with the halberd in one movement. It seemed that my fighting skills weren’t gone which made me slightly happier. When I sheathed my weapons I heard that laugh again. I turned around and looked at the armour “Show yourself, I know you are there!”. The laughter just continued, then the armour started to rise into the air and the pieces came together but they did not fuse and become whole. The creature responsible for my ‘bad dreams’ started to appear, it was a pony like Luna and Celestia: she looked very similar to Luna but larger. She had cat-like irises, her mane was dark violet and looked like it was made of gas and her coat was a dark cerulean which looked more black than blue and her Cutie Mark was the same as Luna’s but it was purple instead of black. But something was amiss, she was translucent, an apparition. If I were in my universe, I would have thought it to be a hologram. “Do you believe it was a wise decision to call me out you foalish creature? I am the Mare in the Moon, also known as Nightmare Moon!”. She said with a sneer. “Of course! You’re the one who harassed my dreams the past few nights.” I retorted “Oh I could have done far worse. I could have trapped you in that dream forever, but alas I need you.” Wait, what? “What for?” “It’s simple I’m going to possess your body and get rid of both Celestia and that foal Luna, I will then destroy the Elements and make the night eternal.” Why does this creature remind me of villains from TV shows? “I’d like to see you try!” I pulled out my halberd and struck a battle position with it behind me and the blade pointing to the ground and my free hand outstretched. She just laughs at me “Gladly!”, and she rushes at me. I slice the blade at her to no effect, she just phased through!! She rams into me headfirst and bowls me over onto the ground, knocking me unconscious. When I woke up something felt wrong, very wrong: my HUD was showing ’VIRUS DETECTED, COUNTERING…’ I tried to get up only to stumble over my hooves, WAIT, HOOVES?! I ran (or galloped) to the mirror Rarity gave me after getting used to my new form of locomotion, and checked my refection. I got turned into Nightmare Moon! I looked precisely like her in every way, I even wore her armour which was now whole once more. “Like the new look?” I looked around to see where the voice was coming from, “Over here”. I looked back at my reflection in time to see it laughing at me. “Oh, the look on your face. Now take a good look, I have taken possession of your body and it transformed into me I guess as a result. Unintended but I don’t see it as a problem.” “Wait, WHAT?!” Hold on, I sounded just like her! SHITSHITSHIT! “But alas I do not seem able to control our body.” I saw my HUD light back up. ‘VIRUS SUCCESSFULLY QUARANTINED’. That’s when I remembered. “The reason why you don’t have control is because I had a run in with a body snatcher before. In a nutshell, I got my body back and some special firewalls to prevent that situation form occurring again.” She just looked at me. “Nopony can take over my body, I took precautions.” “SHUT UP!” I jumped back a bit. This… Nightmare Moon was a very temperamental pony. “This complicates matters. I'm done speaking to you for now.” After that I decided to head to sleep. While I slept I dreamt of some of the adventures I had both in my universe and my short experience in Equestria. When I woke up the next morning I found I was still Nightmare Moon (I wished that part was a dream), so I went to the mirror again to speak with ‘the other me’. I looked into my reflection and sighed, “Took you long enough, I was worried you didn’t want to speak to me.” She laughed at saying this. ‘She has a sick sense of humour,’ I thought. “Why thank you, and yes I can read your mind, now to our discussion. I took the liberty of going through your memories while you slept, and I noticed you have had quite a life. I also noticed that I will never be able to convince you to do as I say, and I know I will not be able to take control over our body, so I’ll … concede, for now at least.” “What’s the catch Nightmare?” This had to be a trick. “No catch, no tricks, I’ve seen your memories, all of your successes and failures, your pain and happiness and I felt each and every one of those emotions. I saw the world as you did, and I think I’ve been going about this wrong. We need to go to this wedding, I’ll teach you some of my magic.” “Let’s do it then”. I learnt how to pick up objects; how to transform into a purple mist and back; the last bit was how to shoot lightning which made me happy as it was one of the elements I had an affinity for. I picked up my halberd, opened our wings and took off for Canterlot. Canterlot was not hard to find since it was the city with a huge dome surrounding it. When we got near I could see a number of creatures that looked like a cross between bugs and ponies. We shocked, bucked and stabbed a lot of the creatures on our way through the shield. We turned to mist and slipped through the dome without issue and oddly enough, my weapon went through as well. ‘It must already be weak,’ Nightmare thought to me. We headed to the room the ceremony was being held and saw Twilight busy exposing another pony like Celestia alongside another pony that looked exactly like the other. Once we entered the one pony had already revealed herself as we entered, we solidified into Nightmare Moon and readied ourselves with the halberd. “Nightmare Moon!”, “Everypony run”, “Ahh!”, and other assorted comments and screams were heard. It seemed oddly expected. “Twilight you and your friends get to the Elements, I’ll hold off this monster.” Seeing my halberd, Twilight just nodded and ran with the rest following suit. Celestia looked shocked as well as the other pony. Her coat was a very dark brown, her wings and mane were blue her eyes were green and her legs and wings had holes in them and her horn was gnarled. She looked like the cross between an Alicorn and an insect. “You think you can stop me? You will not stop Queen Chrysalis!” she said. “That remains to be seen!”. We shouted and charged at her. Celestia, in the middle of the fight carried a white pony with a blue mane and tail away with her magic towards the door where a pink Alicorn was watching. Chrysalis was trying to stab us with her horn but I deflected it with my halberd each time. She saw Celestia trying to take Shining and ran up to her to try stop her, only for me to get between her and Celestia with my halberd again. I fired a few bolts of lightning at her but she kept dodging them. She was faster than I thought. “I’ll keep you safe. Find a way to stop her, I can't keep it up indefinitely”. ‘That’s a foal’s statement’ I heard Nightmare think. Twilight and the rest came running back, successful in retrieving the Elements. I was still holding off Chrysalis, and she eventually snapped and lashed out at me. She then shot a blast of energy that sent my halberd flying and embedding itself in a wall. Distracted, Chrysalis fired another shot at me, I dodged it luckily but was not so lucky on the next one. I was sent flying back and hit against the wall, I couldn’t move my body was too sore I couldn’t move or even turn into mist. I saw Twilight and her friends run up and use the Elements. A bright light enveloped them all and a rainbow was launched from them at Chrysalis and she was blown clear from the room. “You alright Nightmare?” Twilight asked with genuine concern on her face. “Nightmare?!” The others were gathering around us, worried and scared. Sadly I was slowly blacking out, I could feel the blood running down my body from both Chrysalis’ attack and from the impact with the wall. “I still don’t understand why you help these ungrateful ponies. This feeling I have right now is hard to explain, this is the first time I've had somepony care about my well-being. It may be possible I was wrong about this ‘friendship’ thing Twilight spoke about when I fought her. I hope I can find redemption in this last act, our body has taken too much damage if I don’t do something about it we will both die and it’s better if it only kills one of us. Goodbye Michael and thanks I guess, you are still a foal though.”, I then could feel her presence slowly but painlessly leave my body. Sadly I was still in pain and judging by the amount of blood I was losing I was going to completely black out soon. “Yeah, I’ll be fine Twilight.” But I finally lost too much blood and I finally blacked out. Why do I keep slipping in and out of consciousness?! “Excuse me… if you don’t mind, could you wake up please?” Isn’t that Fluttershy’s voice? I opened my eyes to see bars in front of me. Past the bars the Mane Six, Luna, Celestia, the pink female Alicorn and the white male unicorn were all standing there, watching me. I seemed to be in a cell in the Canterlot dungeon, perfect. “It’s been a while Nightmare Moon, why did you help us? What do you stand to gain from this act of so called kindness? And where did you get this halberd from?” Celestia asked with a stern look on her face. Luna looked afraid, the others just looked confused which is understandable since the ‘evil’ Nightmare Moon had helped to save a wedding and Equestria from Chrysalis. “Is that you Michael?” Everypony turned round in shock at Twilight and then back to me. I still felt weak but I could stand at least. “The one and only!” Still using Nightmare’s voice. My friends smiled, they knew it was me. Twilight and Rarity threw the door open and my friends practically mugged me. “Oh Michael! It’s great to see you again, how did this happen? How did you turn into Nightmare Moon?” They let go of me as I started to tell the story, but I noticed that the sisters and the new couple leaned in to hear my story. So I told them everything, how I had Nightmare mess with my dreams, waiting for her to reveal herself at night for the past two weeks, confronting and turning into her, up until crashing the wedding. “Well that is quite the story, Michael. It would have been near impossible to believe if I had not seen it for myself. I-I’m sorry for exiling you, ” Wow that must have been hard for Celestia to say. Luna smiled at me. “I guess we have another sister now, Tia?” Luna said looking up at her sister. Celestia looked a little sad at what she said, but smiled and turned to me. “Half-sister Luna .Of course, you may come and live with us in the castle if you’d like Michael, I would like to make it up to you. Wait what’s wrong?” I started to double over in pain, my body felt like it was on fire. I saw before my eyes my coat changed in colour to a fairly dark brown; I felt my legs gain some muscle and I felt my face change shape as well; my shoes changed to a jet black colour, the metal started to creep up my legs, they stopped at my knees making them look like boots and I gathered my helmet and chest plate did the same since I could feel them moving as well. The pain passed and I stood up once more, feeling better than ever. “Look, Your Cutie Mark! Oh It looks so cooool!” Pinkie was jumping up and down, pointing at my flank, what are we going to do with you? But she was right, even my Cutie Mark changed. It had the Infinity’s silhouette (think of it as a cross between a Sova Carrier and a Kol battleship); a my halberd seemed to cross it on the left while the Starblade was crossing on its right; there were also some small white stars surrounding the Mark. “It’s so strange sugarcube, I wonder what it all means?” AJ asked. “It probably means Nightmare Moon is no longer a part of me.” Hey, my voice changed, it sounded male! I wondered and tried to go human. Hey, it worked! I was standing on my two feet once more in my Assassin clothes, I then changed back into my Alicorn form and human form again to make double sure while the others just watched me. It seemed that what I wear as an Alicorn does not transfer to my human side and vice verse. “Since Nightmare and you are no longer one, maybe a change in your Alicorn name is in order.” I gave it some thought, I looked at my mark then to Celestia and gave my answer. “Starlancer. I think would suit my Mark and me well. I’ve travelled the far reaches of space, and my halberd is my most used weapon next to the Starblade. The silhouette is that of the ship I came on.” This was the best explanation I could think of. “Very well and Luna, I believe its more of a half-brother we have now.” Celestia giggled a little after saying this. Luna looked very happy and hugged me, then the others joined in. “How did the wedding go?” I had to ask. Turns out after the changelings were stopped, the couple decided to postpone till I woke up again. I felt honoured, happy and yet responsible. I was out for three days. Sadly I declined my new sister’s offer to live in their castle, explaining that I had grown too attached to the old castle and I thought I might repair it. Luna said that she will send ponies to help with the construction and will give me my own royal guard. Okay… I went around helping Twilight with her preparations, Applejack’s food was amazingly delicious I had to make sure not to eat the entire table come the actual wedding. Rarity made me a suit for both my human and Alicorn forms, the human suit was Navy blue with gold trimming and made a replica of my Cutie Mark on the top left chest area out of rubies for the Infinity and sapphires for the halberd and Starblade but it also had Nightmare Moon’s Cutie Mark on the opposite side, as a memento of her. Turned out my Mark showed on the back of my right shoulder while I was human. My Alicorn suit was silver and white but anypony would still be able to see my Cutie Mark easily. I was also given back my halberd by Luna, Celestia had I put in another section of the castle while I was unconscious. I eventually managed to formally meet Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Twilight’s brother: Shining Armor. Turned out the Princess was Twilight’s old foal sitter; she preferred ‘Cadance’ and she was the princess of the Crystal Empire. Cadance had Dark violet with moderate rose and pale gold streaks in her mane and tail; her wings had a purple tint near the tips. Shining Armor was Captain of the Royal Guard under Celestia. How they met is a mystery to me. Cadance was having a lovely time with the preparations, Pinkie got a new fan for her brand of parties. As the day of the wedding came, Shining was getting nervous. Shining was in his red and gold suit, he even had a little silver shield bearing the same pink star Twilight has on his chest, secured by two straps like a buckle. I went to his room to see if I could help out. “I don’t know Michael, I feel like I would rather face Chrysalis’s changeling army alone than go through with this.” I was in his room sat on a chair with my legs crossed. “That’s natural Shining. Everypony gets cold hooves, but ask yourself this: do you love her? Could you live without her?” I knew what his response would be but he has to say it himself in order to believe it. “She’s the light of my life Michael, I love her more than anything else.” I stood up and walked up close to him. “There you go then, now stop worrying and go get married Captain of the Guard (I pointed to the door). GO GO GO!” Yelling a battle cry, Shining burst out of his room, hightailing it to the ceremony. ‘No better pep talk like a military pep talk’ I chuckled to myself. I took the time to finally look at what my Alicorn side looked like in Shining’s mirror. I was just as I was after Nightmare left me, dark brown coat, the same gas-like mane but it was a very pale blue colour; my eyes were yellow but I had the same cat-slit irises, my chest plate and helmet were the same jet black colour as my boots and my new Cutie Mark was on the chest plate where Nightmare’s old one was what was weird though were my wings: they seemed out of proportion to the rest of my body, maybe about 1.5 times larger than they should be? My helmet curved under my eyes, nearly reaching my chin but it did not touch the rest of itself; my chestplate had a bat’s wing on either side of it and they were swept back. Satisfied I reverted to human again and made my way to the ceremony. I got there in time before the ceremony was to start, Celestia wanted myself and Luna to stand on either side of her as she wed the couple. Twilight straightened the buckle of his suit, he looked embarrassed. I could only imagine what happened if he was yelling and running the whole way here. Then it was time and the guards opened the doors for Cadance. She was quite beautiful in her white and gold wedding dress as she walked up towards the altar. The ceremony went without a hitch and as the couple kissed on the balcony, Rainbow Dash flew up and performed her Sonic Rainboom, I swear I could hear her shout: “Best wedding ever!” I had to agree, it was lovely. The reception lasted until way into the night. There was singing, dancing and Pinkie Pie’s bottomless pit of a stomach, I swear she ate twice her weight in food. The Princesses were dancing with the couple and Twilight was singing ‘Love is in Bloom’, very well I might add. After Shining and Cadance left in their carriage for their honeymoon, I decided it was time for me to go to the castle. I said my goodbyes to my friends and my new half-sisters. I found a large clearing a short distance away from the reception and changed into Starlancer. I gave my wings a few flaps and then got airborne. I then saw Dash come up to me. “So, what’s it like being an Alicorn?” I looked at myself and laughed. “It sure is something to get used to but I have turned into a lot of weirder things. Hey Dash, wanna race?” Ten bits if you can guess her answer. “Aw yeah, you’re on! I lose and I’ll personally change the weather to whatever you want for a week, I win and you do what I say for a week, deal?!” “Deal, on your marks … get set … GO!!” We shot off in direction of the castle. We must have been nearing the equivalent of Mach 1. She pulled off a Sonic Rainboom just to keep up, as I turned my head to see her I could see it in her eyes: she knew she was going to lose. As we got close we went to land in the courtyard. Dash landed just behind me, exhausted. Even I was panting, whoever said that one should ‘ease’ back into something probably never met me. “I… let… you… win” She said between breaths. Still cocky even in defeat, I like her attitude. “Come on Dash, I’ll make you a drink”. She accepted my offer and we went inside and got some lemonade. She finished it quite fast and said she had to get going but she’ll be back tomorrow for my prize. I was starting to enjoy my time here.