Twilight of Equestria

by Aeondragon

Awakening

Violet eyes snapped open in the darkness. Their owner examined her surroundings briefly, before closing them again. She didn’t have time to waste. Images of a burning body plagued her mind.

Twilight Sparkle cast her mind from her body, examining the surroundings with her magic, rather than with her normal senses. She barely even noticed the drain from her astral projection. Canterlot was protected by a number of magical protections. Chief among them was the castle’s wards against teleportation. Only the princesses could teleport through them. They could temporarily give permission, but not permanent exceptions. Twilight knew she couldn’t afford the time to locate Luna, and Celestia would be asleep for quite a few more minutes. It was another consequence of the spell used on the solar princess, she somehow knew.

Twilight examined the wards carefully. These were very old wards. They were more powerful than modern wards, but would have been many times more difficult to cast. In essence, the castle’s protections were formed of patches that were placed adjacent to one another, like the pieces of a puzzle. It was quite interesting, but she was getting sidetracked. With a minor extension of her will, Twilight cast her mind further through the wards, slipping between the patches like water through cracks. She found her way out of the wards in seconds.

A moment later, the lavender mare vanished from her lying position, leaving behind only a bright flash of light. The alabaster alicorn curled inward, seeking the warm body she had been deprived of.

Rainbow bid Fluttershy farewell and flew back towards Ponyville. She’d make one last pass through the town before returning to Canterlot. She might want to help Luna, but there was no way she’d leave her home completely unprotected. Those royal guards posted here were nice and all, but she’d rather keep an eye out herself.

It was as she was finishing up her final sweep that she saw it: an enormous pitch-black cloud in the shape of a sphere. It was less than a fifteenth the size of Ponyville, but not by much. Nowadays, pretty much all of Equestria was dark, the cloud cover blocking most sunlight. However, this cloud was so black that it was clearly visible despite being engulfed in shadow. It was moving at a rapid pace directly towards the town. Well, a rather quick pace for a cloud, anyway.

Rainbow shot towards the cloud, dipping to the ground first to pick up a rather hefty rock. She flew towards it and hurled the stone at the giant cloud. To her shock, the rock bounced off of the pitch-black cloud.

The pegasus cursed as the cloud continued inexorably towards Ponyville. She was NOT going to allow this thing to get near her friends. She reared back to gather momentum before rocketing forward, hooves outstretched. Surprisingly, she punched right through the cloud, her usual weather-manipulation magic working perfectly.

In that split second where time slows after one makes an enormous mistake, Rainbow saw the inside of the cloud. It was filled with liquid rainbow. The volatile substance exploded right before her eyes. She brought her forelegs up to protect her face, for all the good it would do her. As she raised them, she could see the rainbow light already wrapping around her leg, though she couldn’t feel it. She braced herself for the end and, as expected, she was sent flying back.

To her shock, she felt no pain. Recklessly making a slight gap to see between her own legs, she saw a rainbow trail between her and the cloud. Then, the cloud exploded. Twilight’s bracelet had saved her again, she realized. Unfortunately, even flying away at Rainboom speeds couldn’t allow her to escape an explosion of this size from ground zero of the blast.

Despite her best efforts, the rainbow explosion slammed into her. She could feel it burning her, and she knew she was only on the very outskirts of the blast. Part of her back was even outside of it. Gathering up every ounce of strength she could muster, Rainbow forced herself away. Hurtling backwards at full speed, the cyan mare braced herself for impact with the hard ground.

Her flickering eyes could see that the blast radius ended outside Ponyville. Unfortunately, she was rocketing towards the middle of town at an incredible pace. She closed her eyes, just hoping that she survived the crash.

A sphere of brilliant purple light manifested in the center of Ponyville with a shockwave that left a five foot crater in the ground. It coalesced into the shape of a pony before taking on features. The whole process took about a quarter of a second.

Twilight shook her head. ‘Note to self: use less power when teleporting.’ She glanced around before letting out a gasp at the sight of a falling pegasus. Twilight pointed her horn towards the falling mare. Before it even had time to gather a visible glow, it released a bolt of light. The stream connected with a glowing bracelet on Rainbow’s foreleg. As it did, the pegasus’ movement ceased instantly. ‘Who would have thought a prank would save her life?’ Twilight thought wryly. She wasn’t sure that a normal telekinetic grip would have been able to stop the other pony in time.

Sighing in relief, Twilight wrapped Rainbow in a lavender aura and gently lowered the smoldering pony to the ground. She refused to allow herself to think about any possible consequences of the burns and lit her horn. Twilight was no healer, but she had done plenty of reading on the subject and had an overwhelming amount of magical power. With all of Celestia’s teachings, Twilight knew just enough to be confident of her ability to heal the pegasus. The unicorn was positive that she could heal at least enough to ensure that the cyan mare would be out of danger.

A wave of power washed over the pegasus, playing across her wounds. Moments later, they began to heal, starting with the most serious ones. Releasing another sigh, Twilight turned her head to look for the cause of Dash’s injuries. There were two dozen armored pegasi flying towards the town, five of them pushing ominous black clouds.

“T-Twilight?” Rainbow whispered in amazement, having regained consciousness as her wounds healed.

“It’s me, Dash. You’re safe now.” Twilight said reassuringly. “What happened?”

“No time!” Rainbow cursed, seeing the oncoming pegasi. “We’re at war with the pegasi! Those black clouds are filled with liquid rainbow! Be careful!” Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she turned to look back at the pegasi.

“Leave it to me, Dash.” Twilight made to move away, then paused. She turned back towards Rainbow and lit her horn. She quickly raced through extremely advanced calculations before raising a hoof and placing it on Rainbow’s bracelet. The crystal blazed a brilliant violet as Twilight’s horn’s glow seemed to transfer to her creation. A moment later, power erupted from it, growing into an enormous dome that covered the entire town. With a crystal anchor, the barrier would last for a very long time, and be practically indestructible.

Pleased with her work, Twilight galloped towards the pegasi.

The pegasus strike team was quite pleased, despite things not going as scheduled. That traitor, Rainbow Dash, had managed to trigger the Super Battle Cloud before it could hit the town, but she’d probably died in the process. The clouds were tough to produce, but General Thunderstorm would have been happy to lose many more to deal with the rogue.

The sudden purple shield was somewhat worrying, but it shouldn’t be a problem. The Battle Clouds would pass right through it. Even without the Super Cloud, the ones they still had would be enough to destroy more than a quarter of the town. It would still be an excellent test of their power.

The leader laughed as a single lavender unicorn stepped through the barrier, the shield rippling with her passing. She looked different from the reports, but no single unicorn could hope to stop them, no matter who she was.

Clearly, Twilight Sparkle felt differently. He didn’t know whether to laugh at her arrogance, or to pity her stupidity.

Twilight stepped confidently through her shield. She glared at the attackers for a moment before applying a spell to amplify her voice. It wouldn’t be as good as the Royal Canterlot Voice, but it would work all the same.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am the Element of Magic and the personal student of Princess Celestia. Ponyville is under my protection.” She declared powerfully, with a note of pride. “You can either leave now or be destroyed.”

She could see their laughter, but couldn’t hear their responses from this distance without a spell’s aid. Oddly, she thought she could actually feel them rejecting her generous offer for some reason. How strange. Could it be another new ability? She’d have to investigate that later.

“So be it.” She declared, lowering her head and cancelling the vocal-enhancement spell. Her horn began to glow once more. This time, the glow built until it was absolutely blinding. A colossal beam of brilliant energy erupted from the tip of her horn, the power so intense that she was actually driven back until she was pressed against her shield. Six pegasi were caught in the blast, which had extended far enough to bore a hole in the cloud cover above. ‘Remember to anchor yourself to the ground next time, Twilight.’ She reprimanded herself as she examined the results of her spell.

Three of the black clouds floated in the air, unaffected by her potent spellwork. ‘That wasn’t exactly a destruction-based spell, but liquid rainbow should have reacted. The clouds are clearly magically inert. Yet the pegasi can move them. Interesting... Maybe they’re only immune to unicorn magic?’ If that was the case, then she still wouldn’t have a problem.

It was really quite fortunate that she’d had the chance to spend a full seven weeks with Princess Celestia in the dreamscape. It had given her plenty of time to examine the new abilities she’d somehow acquired.

A sphere of bluish-purple light formed at the tip of her horn. It split into a shining trio of energy bolts that exploded through the air. The beams of unicorn-directed pegasus magic tore through the black clouds like tissue paper, causing the reservoirs of liquid rainbow within to detonate.

Not taking the time to watch the spectacle, Twilight twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding a charging pegasus. She directed a concussive blast into him, slamming him into her shield. She took a moment to set up a recurring loop of the spell. Even as she teleported away, he was being repeatedly slammed into it. The spell would repeat for however long the magic she’d infused into the air lasted.

Her teleport took her to a spot directly beneath one of the two remaining black clouds, this one being pushed by a pegasus towards the barrier. Realizing that her shield, composed of unicorn magic as it was, would be useless against the strange clouds, she composed another bolt of pegasus magic and fired it into the cloud. She winced as the cloud’s bearer was caught in the explosion. She took the time to compose a quick spell to pull the pegasus away from the blast.

In the time it took her to do that, she found herself surrounded. Five of the remaining pegasi had surroundenod her. Unfortunately, Twilight had never been particularly adept at martial combat. However, she found herself easily dodging their attacks. Somehow, with every beat of their wings, she received a flash of their emotions and mental state. From that, she could easily calculate their form of attack. She quickly converted about a third of her magic into that of an earth pony. She felt her counterattack shatter one pegasus mare’s ribs.

After managing to catch another in her rear leg as she flew by, Twilight had decided she was quite sick of physical fighting. She raised one hoof and concentrated all of her magic there, her horn glowing. When she slammed it down, the earth shattered, an enormous violet-tinged earthquake rippling out from where she stood. One pegasus slammed into one of the rocks that violently jutted out of the earth, while a second was simply buried beneath a mound of mud. A violet blade materialized and tore a deep gash in the earth. The shaking widened the gap and the third unharmed pegasus, as well as the one that Twilight had kicked in the leg, fell into it.

Twilight sighed in relief as the brawl ended. She surveyed the surroundings. The remaining pegasi had made good use of her distraction and had pulled a collection of crackling storm clouds out of the enormous mass blocking the sky. She wove a shield around herself as they sent bolt after bolt of lightning down at her. Fortunately, the lightning was unable to breach her specially crafted barrier. All each stroke did was make the shield glow brighter.

She carefully surveyed the battlefield before something caught her eye. A pegasus was flying towards the last black cloud, which had been ignored in the fray. She prepared herself and, as he paused to take hold of it, she teleported directly above him. Her hooves slammed into his wings, earning a cry of pain from the stallion as they snapped to his sides. His cry became fearful as she cast a gravity manipulation spell upon him, shifting the way that he interacted with the world’s gravity. The other pony was pulled towards the cloud at a rate about fifty times that of normal gravity.

Twilight teleported back behind her shield, but the pegasus was ripped through the cloud, which detonated. The pegasus was, luckily for him, pulled through the explosion as well. The charred pegasus, temporarily bereft of flight, slammed into another. The two were left sprawled out on a storm cloud together, unconscious.

‘That’s fifteen down.’ Twilight thought to herself, her chest heaving. She wasn’t magically depleted, but combat like this was tiring. ‘Nine left.’

The pegasi had not stopped directing their lightning at her shield and she found herself in a position akin to that of a turtle trapped inside of its own shell. It was entirely possible that they hadn’t seen her leave, considering how brief her trip outside had been and how bright the lightning was against her shield.

Finally, Twilight decided on a new course of action. Her horn blazed with power as she mentally accessed her shield spell, altering its structure. The moment the next bolt of lightning made contact, the entire dome exploded outward, pushing away the clouds and pegasi but doing no real harm. Twilight then unleashed a pair of bluish-purple energy ribbons from her horn. The two began to rotate rapidly, forming a tornado-like funnel with a wide mouth. The addition of a powerful wind vacuum didn’t hurt either.

The lightning from the clouds was soon drawn into the middle of the light. The clouds themselves soon followed. Twilight waited until her creation had consumed all of the clouds before dispersing the energy constructs and inverting her wind spell. She had mixed her constructs with a stasis spell that kept the lightning active, so when the suction was reversed the lightning followed the clouds, blasting away all of the pegasi. Four of them were rendered completely unconscious.

Twilight didn’t bother waiting for them to pull themselves together. While they were still stunned from her prior offensive, she unleashed a volley of energy bolts. They numbered in the dozens, and three ponies fell in quick succession to stun bolts. The remainder of her attack was something else entirely. The bolts shifted in midair, converging on the one who Twilight guessed had been in charge, judging from the markings on his armor. It was just luck that she managed to catch the last pegasus in the bubble that formed from the energy.

With a final spell, Twilight summoned all of the unconscious attackers, enlarging the sphere to contain all of them. She absently altered the environment within the sphere, making it anti-gravity and null-magic, ensuring that they couldn’t do more than twitch.

Twilight had a bright smile on her face now. She was pretty tired, but that fight had been surprisingly exhilarating. She cantered back into Ponyville, levitating the giant sphere of captives behind her. She dispelled her giant barrier as she passed back through it.

A mostly healed Rainbow Dash could only stare at the happy looking lavender mare. The enormous purple bubble with twenty four floating pegasi in it might have had something to do with the dumbstruck look on her face.

“Did- did you just beat all of them?” Rainbow asked, amazed.

Twilight nodded, quite pleased with herself. “Yup. It was a bit of trouble, but nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Rainbow stared for a moment longer before forcibly pulling herself back to normal. “Um… yeah, we’ll talk about that later. First of all, why can’t I move?”

“Oh.” Twilight blushed. “Sorry. I guess I forgot to reverse the prank earlier.” A beam of light erupted from her already glowing horn, striking Rainbow’s bracelet. The pegasus immediately shot into the air with a joyful cry.

Rainbow finally returned to the ground a bit later. “Um… What prank were you talking about?”

Twilight shrugged. “Just a little spell I made with your bracelet. It alters the parameters of the bracelet. Instead of storing your Rainbooms, it consumes all of your momentum. It even keeps you from falling due to gravity.” Twilight giggled. “I thought it would be fun to prank you for once.”

“Um… Well, thanks for the bracelet.” Rainbow decided to ignore Twilight’s idea of a prank. “It really saved me a couple of times. I’m sure it took a lot of work.”

“As long as it’s helping you, then it was worth every second.” Twilight stated definitively, smiling brightly.

“Um…” Rainbow found herself struggling to suppress a blush at Twilight’s earnest reply. “We should probably get those prisoners to Luna.”

“Alright.” Twilight agreed. With a brilliant violet flash, twenty six ponies and a magical force field vanished from Ponyville.

Once they arrived in Canterlot, Twilight dropped off her captives in the prison before heading into the castle with Rainbow. The cyan mare spent a great deal of time informing Twilight what had happened. The lavender unicorn could only listen, stunned, at the horrifying tale of the beginning of this Equestrian civil war. Twilight wished that she was in some horrible nightmare, but knew that it was reality.

Once Twilight had finally managed to accept the knowledge, Rainbow turned to Twilight.

“Hey Twilight, I was wondering… What happened to you?”

Twilight tilted her head to the side, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well… Your horn is longer, you’re taller, your mane is all glowy… Not that it’s a bad look!” Rainbow backtracked hastily. “No, you look awesome!”

“What are you talking abou…” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she conjured a full mirror. “What the hay!” She exclaimed as she looked at her reflection.

She was indeed several inches taller, with a horn that rivaled Celestia’s. Her lavender coat glowed faintly, and her mane was luminescent, as was her tail. Both flowed as if from some nonexistent wind. Her hair left trails of light as it moved. Her cutie mark pulsed with inner power, and even her eyes were more radiant.

“This is… new.” She murmured as she examined her appearance. She swung her head from side to side to watch the motes of light left in the shimmering trail of her mane. “I’ve gotta say, this is pretty cool.” She said, barely catching the nod of agreement from Rainbow in the corner of her eye.

“Indeed. Your new appearance is most intriguing, Twilight Sparkle.” A new voice called out. Twilight banished the mirror into nothingness as she whirled to face the alicorn of the night.

“Princess Luna!” Twilight called excitedly. “It’s great to see you!”

“I am pleased to see you as well, my friend.” Luna agreed with a smile. Unfortunately, her smile soon mutated into a grimace. “I take it Rainbow Dash has informed you of the situation?”

“She told me, but I still can’t believe it. Equestria at war with itself? It’s the stuff of nightmares!”

“I agree, but it is the reality we face. Fortunately, Celestia will wake soon and-” As if on cue, sunlight shone through the window for the first time in weeks. As the three ponies looked through the glass, they saw the cloud cover melting away.

“Celestia’s awake!” An ecstatic Twilight proclaimed.