"Princess Celestia wants to meet you four." The Order-naries, Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Rarity, and Sweetie Bell were gathered at the library eating dinner. About halfway between Fluttershy's cottage and Mane Street, Spike had, to Ash's surprise, belched up a response to the letter he'd sent before he, Twilight, and Ash had left Zecora's. Twilight had perused the letter quickly and then invited Ash and his team to eat dinner with her so she could break the news to all four Order-naries at once.
"I'd ask why," Ash said dryly, "but I think I know the answer already: she wants to meet the ponies who've made such a splash around town in the course of five days and decide if it's worth the risk to let us continue running around."
"Uh," Twilight said, pulling the letter out and reading it again, "That's… another way to put it I guess. She's going to send a carriage for us tomorrow around ten AM."
"Us?" Soul Mage asked.
"Spike and I will be going with you," Twilight said, "We're from Canterlot originally, so we know our way around."
"Yep," Spike said around a bite of hay fries, "Maybe after we're done I can show you my favorite donut shop."
"Wow, you guys are lucky," Sweetie Bell said, "I wish I had a chance to meet the Princesses."
Rarity chewed her food thoughtfully for a second before swallowing and saying, "Sweetie, how would you like to go to Canterlot with me tomorrow?"
"Really?" Sweetie said, eyes shining in excitement.
"You're going to Canterlot?" Twilight asked.
"Don't worry, I'm not planning to impose myself on you and the Princess," Rarity said, "I just need to shop around to see how much it will cost me to rebuild the Carousel Boutique and replace all my equipment. Once I know that, I may need to see if I can talk Hoity Toity or some other designer into hiring me part-time or buying jewels from me to cover the cost. And don't you start to apologize again Ash," she added, seeing the guilty expression on the unicorn's face, "You've done more than enough of that already."
Ash sighed and looked down at his plate like it had just insulted him. "Royalty," he muttered darkly. "I'll tell you this right now," he said, looking up at Twilight, "Political leaders make me testy. Most expect you to answer to them without doing anything to deserve your respect, and 'royals' are the worst in my opinion." He looked around at the disapproving looks coming from Soul and Heart and the appalled expression on Rarity and Twilight's faces. "I'm not refusing," he said, "but you might want to warn your Princess that I may be less than pleasant company." He stood up suddenly and said, "And now that I've made this situation very awkward, I'll take my leave. Thank you for the food Twilight. Good night."
A silence hung over the group for a moment after Ash left the library. Finally, Soul cleared his throat and said, "He's… actually that way with everyone. When you first meet him, you can only gain his respect, pity, or grudging tolerance. He doesn't take reputation or the opinions of others into consideration- the way you treat him is what he'll build on. I don't think he's met a leader yet that was able to put up with that."
"Princess Celestia's a very kind pony," Twilight said, "but… I should give her some fair warning I guess."
"After dinner," Spike said, "I'm still eating here."
Ash was having a dream of some sort when he was roughly shaken awake by a pair of hooves. Mumbling, he opened one eye to peek sleepily at what looked to him like a brown, pony-shaped blob. "Wake up Ash!" the blob shouted with Gale's voice.
"What?" Ash asked grumpily, rubbing his eyes to clear them and looking around. "Geez Gale, it's still dark out," he said.
"I know," Gale said, "Get up."
"Why?" Ash's annoyance was clear, "What's so important it can't wait until proper daybreak?"
"Well," another, country-accented voice said as Applejack's head slid into Ash's range of vision. The orange earth pony was wearing a gold necklace bearing a red, apple-shaped crystal. "The Celestial Almanac said sunrise is supposed ta be at 5:47 AM today," she said "Right now, it's eight o'clock."
"That… That is a problem," Ash said, quickly coming to full wakefulness.
"No duh," Soul said from his stall.
"Any idea why?" Ash asked, still not happy about the wake-up call, "No wait, I've got it: Princess Celestia slept in." To the surprise of the other Order-naries, he actually quailed under the glare Applejack gave him.
"I woke y'all up 'cause I thought you'd offer ta make yourselves useful," she said coldly, "If your just gonna make jokes about this here dire emergency, then just go back ta sleep. I'm gonna go see if Twilight needs me ta help her get the Elements of Harmony gathered up." She galloped off toward town, leaving a humbled Ashen Blaze in her dust cloud.
"Smooth one Blaze," Soul deadpanned, "There's a reason I'm the comic relief on this team."
"Let's just follow her," Ash said, returning to his normal emotional state, "Let's parse out the Gems; anyone have a preference?"
"Topaz," Gale said, "As usual." Ash nodded and slid the gem into the saddlebag Gale was putting on. Soul grabbed the Sapphire for himself and Heart decided on the Emerald. Ash moved the Ruby to his left-side saddlebag to balance out the weight of the Diamond.
"Huh," Soul said as the four ran after the quickly shrinking form of Applejack, "The earth pony takes the Air Gem and the flying pony takes the Earth Gem. Ironic." Ash rolled his eyes as the girls chuckled.
Applejack was pleasantly surprised to see that Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Fluttershy were gathered outside the library, each wearing their Element of Harmony necklace, or tiara in Twilight's case. "Hey Applejack," Twilight called to her as she approached, "I was expecting you to show up a bit earlier."
"I'm used to getting' up with the sun," AJ explained, "Took me a couple minutes to even start thinkin' somethin' was up. I really hope you got a different reason for this than I do."
"I can't think of anything besides Nightmare Moon," Twilight said sadly, "Although I can't even begin to guess how that's possible; Celestia would've warned me if Luna was starting to backslide."
"Dang," AJ said, hanging her head for a second, "Well, we're gonna need Pinkie and Dash if we're gonna do anything about it."
"I'll go wake up Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy said, spreading her wings.
"Good luck dear," Rarity said as the yellow pegasus flew up.
"I'll get Pinkie then," AJ said, turning to gallop toward the bakery. As she ran off, the Order-naries showed up and AJ gave Ash another hard look.
"Order-naries reporting for duty," Soul Mage said with a salute toward Twilight, "specializing in monster slaying, restoration of the status quo, and sarcastic in-fighting." Ash almost jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow before realizing that doing so would rationalize Soul's quip. The golden-yellow unicorn grinned at him anyway. Sobering, he looked back at Twilight and said, "But seriously, we're willing to help if you want us."
"Thank you," Twilight said with a smile, "once the others get here, we're going to Canterlot and see if we can find any clues as to what happened, assuming Nightmare Moon's behind this and that she's set up somewhere else."
"So, we're operating on something slightly better than a wild guess," Ash said dryly, "Lovely." He fished PC out of his bag and put it on. "PC," he said when the computer turned on, "maximum scan range, look for… night magic." The computer responded with a combination of text and audio, all of it sarcastic. "Darkness with a magical undertone then," Ash replied, rolling his eyes, "straight ahead and narrowed, if that'll give you more range and… hold a second." He turned to Twilight and asked, "Canterlot's that castle on the mountain, right?" The lavender unicorn nodded, bemused, and Ash turned his gaze in the proper direction. "Scan." After a few moments, he looked dubiously at the output on the eyepiece and sighed. "There might be something out there," he said, putting PC away, "but it's too far away to be sure."
"So your information is just as speculative as Twilight's," Gale said, "That's a great help Ash."
"Feh," Ash replied.
"How are we going to get there anyway?" Heart asked, "It's a long way to walk from the looks of it."
"That's a very good point," Rarity said, "We had to leave here at noon to get to the Grand Galloping Gala on time. It started just after sunset," she added for the Order-naries's benefit.
"It's only half an hour by air," Twilight said, thinking, "But we only have two, no, wait, three pegasi and no air-coach big enough for… seven, which would probably be beyond the pulling capacity of three pegasi…" She started to pace, thinking hard.
"This is probably a dumb, dead-end idea," Soul said, "but what about teleportation?"
"I could move ten ponies," Ash said, "provided I had a way-point established in Canterlot. Which I…" he trailed off as Soul gave him an "I know that already" look.
Twilight shook her head. "I can teleport myself and anything I'm carrying, and only across town at best," she said. "I guess we're walking then," she added with a sigh.
"What, and leave these guys with nothing to do?" Everypony looked up to see Rainbow Dash hovering in front of a quartet of Pegasus stallions in gold armor harnessed to a large white-and-gold carriage. The rainbow-maned Pegasus had her front legs crossed as she smiled smugly down at the surprised ponies below her. She fluttered to the ground as the royal pegasi flew over their heads to land a short way down the street. As the group trotted over to the carriage, Fluttershy stuck her head out the window and smiled at them.
"Where'd this come from?" Twilight asked, amazed.
"The Princess-" one of the harnessed stallions began, only to be interrupted by a loud gasp.
"Oh wow!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she bounced down the street toward the group with a smirking Applejack on her heels, "A royal carriage! This will make our trip to Canterlot soo much easier!" Several ponies opened their mouths, only to shut them upon deciding not to question Pinkie's intuition.
"As I was saying," the Pegasus stallion said, eyeing Pinkie with trepidation, "The Princess, Celestia, managed to get a message to us before she… disappeared, ordering us to retrieve you at all costs. However, we were only expecting there to be six of you…"
"I could fly alongside you," Heart suggested.
"Me too," Dash said, "and Fluttershy, if she's up to it."
"The carriage can fit eight," one of the other teamsters said, "it'll be a bit tight though…"
"I'll fly too," Fluttershy said quietly, slipping out of the carriage, "I… I don't mind, really."
"Let's load 'em up then," Applejack said, leaping into the carriage over the startled Fluttershy's ducked head. The yellow pegasus quickly moved aside as the other non-winged ponies worked their way into the carriage, with Ashen Blaze being the last to squeeze in, shutting the door behind him before simply laying down on the floor between the benches. The carriage jolted a little as the pegasi galloped down the street before taking flight and orienting themselves in the direction of Canterlot.
About fifteen minutes into the flight, Ash got off the floor and squeezed between Soul and Applejack to look out the front window at the teamsters and the approaching mountainside castle. "So," he said, "You guys wouldn't have some idea of what's happened, would you?" he asked.
"No," the lead pegasus said, "All I know is that we had to scramble to stay ahead of a wave of dark magic that started spreading out from the castle as we left." Ash grimly turned his gaze to the castle, ignoring the discomfort he was causing to the ponies on either side of him. Soul slid onto the floor with a sigh to relieve the pressure, knowing that Ash wasn't likely to move for a while.
A few minutes later the carriage slowed to a stop and hung in the air as the teamsters backpedaled into a controlled hover.
"What's going on?" somepony asked.
"Barrier," Ash said simply. The ponies scrambled over each other trying to look out one of the windows. The entire city of Canterlot and a large part of the surrounding mountain and airspace was encased in a barely visible bubble of blackness. "Pardon me," Ash grunted, trying to get his saddlebag opened, "I need to test its- no!" He'd managed to get the Diamond out, only for it to slip out of his magic grip and go flying out the front window. "Again?" the unicorn exclaimed, watching helplessly as the Gem flew toward the barrier. A rainbow blur cut across his vision as Rainbow Dash flew out and grabbed the Diamond in a tight, four-legged grip against her belly and tried to fly back to the carriage. She was failing.
"Rainbow!" Twilight exclaimed, flinging out her telekinesis to grab the blue pegasus. Rarity, Soul, and Ash all added their power and together they managed to drag Dash back toward the carriage. As she drew near, Ash wiggled out the front window and climbed to the top of the carriage.
"Bring her to me," he said, "We've got to get the Diamond put away." Dash angled her wings to gain the necessary altitude as the unicorns pulled her up alongside Ash. Transferring his grip to the Gem, Ash helped Rainbow transfer it back into his saddlebag and closed it up tight. "Oh no you don't," Ash grunted as the unseen force continued to pull at the Diamond, "It's mine!" He stared intently at his saddlebag, and then quickly swung his head to sever an invisible thread of power, ending the pull. "Ok," he said, turning his attention back to the barrier, "The Gems do not come out into the open under any circumstances until I find out where Tau'rin got that attraction spell."
"Tau'rin's in Canterlot?" Rarity exclaimed.
"Yep," Ash said, "This barrier and that attempted Gem theft both have his signature underlying them. Somehow he managed to take control of your capital in one night. He's been a sneaky little meeper…"
"How do we get in?" Gale asked, "I mean, I'm sure you could take that barrier down with the Diamond, but if you can't even pull it out..."
Ash stuck his head over the edge and smiled at Gale through the window. "I don't need to pull it out," he said, "I've only been doing that out of habit. So long as I can touch a Gem with my magic, I can use it."
"Ok," Heart said, "so that lets you and Soul use your Gems, but what about Gale and me?"
"I think you're out of luck," Ash said, "Sorry." He pulled his head up and looked at the barrier again. Hope I'm right, he thought as he focused his magic again, splitting his attention between establishing a link to the Diamond and looking for a weakness in the barrier before him. His horn glowed brighter as the Diamond's energy flowed into it, and Ash allowed himself a small smile. Have to keep it small and focused, but looks like I can do this. He fired a beam of light from his horn, which pierced through the barrier. With a toss of his head, Ash sliced the beam through the darkness to create a large hole in the barrier. "Go!" he shouted at the pegasi in the harnesses as he threw himself flat on the roof of the carriage.
"Uh, sir," one of the pegasi said," shouldn't you get back-"
"GO!" Ash shouted. The teamsters whinnied and began flapping their wings hard, quickly picking up speed as Ash grumbled under his breath. As the carriage neared the hole, Ash carved at its edges to keep it open until everypony made it through. "That'll be the easy part," Ash said, looking back, "count on it."