Luna remained in our room until we woke up, Rhonda's excitement at seeing my changes finalized causing her to jump around me like a puppy getting a treat. She even shot underneath me from left to right and back again, making it difficult for me to walk toward the door.
"Thank you again for keeping watch over us, princess Luna," I smiled at the, now shorter, princess and she nodded slowly.
"I guard the night, princess Josey. I was happy to help." Luna opened the door and motioned toward it. "Cadance and Twilight have arrived from the Crystal Empire. My sister is expecting us all for breakfast."
I stretched my wings out a bit as I let out a yawn, and felt they were more comfortable stretched than they were folded at my side, I looked over at Luna and realized hers were unfolded as well.
"I'm starting to see why all Alicorns keep their wings stretched," I muttered, but then put a hoof down in front of Rhonda to stop her from running around. "How about we focus on getting some breakfast first, and you can run around me after?" I suggested, and she went wide-eyed at the thought!
"YAY! FOOD!" she exclaimed, and rushed out through the open door before I could comment on her seemingly boundless energy.
"Does she remind you of somepony?" I wondered of Luna as I passed her by, shaking my head lightly as Rhonda had already disappeared down the next hallway.
Luna closed the door behind us and trotted up to my left side, looking up. "She is just as excited, yes."
"And as pink," I added.
"If not for her eyes, they would be a perfect match," Luna nodded, leading me into the turn to our right.
I smiled down at her before looking up ahead at the double doors behind which the great hall was located.
"I did not do too much damage, did I? Just some flowerbeds?" I asked with some trepidation.
"You have already been forgiven for what you did," Luna replied, smiling up at me. "Do not worry. The most she would do is banish you to the moon for a thousand years."
I missed a step and had to find my hoofing again, but Luna was laughing merrily at her own joke.
I caught up to her and snorted. "That was not funny."
"Indeed. But I do so love how you responded to it," Luna grinned mischievously.
We stopped at the door and Luna motioned to the guards to keep the doors closed for a moment longer, turning to face me.
"Before we join the others, there is one thing I need to ask of you," she said, her tone as serious as the look on her face.
I raised an eyebrow. "What would that be, princess Luna?"
"If you ever feel any jealousy, any dark thoughts, any desire to do harm to another, please let me know?" Luna almost pleaded, and I could see how deep her fear was of another Nightmare Moon rising.
I reached my left forehoof up and held it to my chest. "I promise, Luna. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye." I mimicked the last bit, putting my hoof over my closed eye.
Luna chuckled lightly, turning back to the doors. "If there was any question of why your girlfriend turned into a Pinkie Pie clone, you just answered it."
"Oh, ha-ha," I stated, before taking a deep breath and turning for the doors myself.
Luna gave a nod to the guards and they moved to push the doors open, revealing the large table with its many cushions stacked around it and with various items used during breakfast laid out on it. A few ponies were sitting around it already.
I raised an eyebrow as Rhonda was seated all cuddled-up to Cadance's left side, her forelegs hugged around the princess while Cadance gently stroked a hoof through Rhonda's mane, but I followed Luna into the room regardless.
"...but found no useful information," Twilight Sparkle finished what she was saying, then looked up and waved a wing in our direction.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Twilight. But all hope is not yet lost. Josey here may prove to be our trump card," Celestia smiled, and I felt my cheeks darken.
"Trump card? I'm not sure what you're talking about, Celestia," I smirked, returning the wingwaves from Twilight and Cadance both.
Luna walked over to sit on the left beside Celestia, stifling a yawn before levitating some food her way, and I looked between Celestia and Luna on the one side of the table, and Twilight, Cadance, Rhonda, and Shining Armor on the other.
"Would you terribly mind if I come sit beside you, Celestia?" I wondered, and the sun princess laughed softly to that.
"Not at all, Josey, please feel free to," she returned, pulling a glass and a plate over from a stack further down the table and setting them down in front of me as I sat down on the pillow to her right.
I looked over at Twilight Sparkle's face, her pondering gaze having followed me as I made my way around the table, and tilted my head a little at her. The movement shocked her from her thoughts, and she looked down a little.
"I must say, I would have never imagined myself to be sitting opposite the world-famous Twilight Sparkle," I started, and Twilight's face darkened with a blush as she looked up. "Do you know that your adventures are broadcast around the world back on Earth? So many little girls and boys look up to you, although they can't seem to come to a consensus about whether it was a good thing you became an Alicorn or not. I'd imagine they'd say the same about me," I chuckled.
Twilight just stared at me, so I looked around at the items on the table. There were a few types of cereal, some bread, two types of cupcake; one set with glazing and one set without, and an assortment of freshly picked greens with some flowers on the side. To drink there was water, several types of juice, and a pail of milk.
"More mother's milk, Celestia?" I wondered, but the pony to my left shook her head. I turned mine to face her and noticed we really didn't differ that much in height. I was only a little shorter than her.
"This is fresh cow's milk," she revealed. "Also donated."
I shrugged and moved some cereal into a bowl, then poured some of the cow's milk over it. "As long as it doesn't make me drunk, I'm fine with it."
Celestia's giggling reached my ears at about the same time as I reached a spoonful of cereal to my lips, and I looked up to see practically every pony around the table looking at me with various odd looks on their faces.
"What? Did I say something wrong?" I wondered, putting my lips around the spoon and licking the cereal off of it.
Celestia was laughing too hard for me to get anything worthwhile out of her response, Luna just smiled with some sense of pride in her gaze, but otherwise remained silent. Across the table Shining Armor looked at me as if he was trying to judge whether I would be a threat, and Twilight's jaw had just about dropped under the table. Rhonda was staring at me as if she'd seen a ghost, and that just left Cadance.
I pulled the spoon from my mouth, swallowed, and looked her straight in her love-filled eyes. "What's going on, Cadance?"
"Celestia just told us you were incapable of using your magic," Cadance offered with a warm smile. "Whatever happened overnight, you just made yourself breakfast. It's quite an achievement to go from being unable to use your magic, to levitating items across a fair distance with not so much as a wobble."
"Impossible, I'd say," Twilight murmured, having finally gotten her composure back.
"Now why would it have to be impossible?" Luna sighed, "Did you not write in one of your reports that a newborn unicorn foal had given your friend Pinkie Pie a run for her money?"
"That's different," Twilight remarked with a snort, "Pumpkin Cake was born a unicorn. Josey has been a human all her life."
"But she was reborn as an Alicorn during the night, Twilight," Cadance cut in again, but then looked down at the catatonic pink pony to her side. "Although perhaps Rhonda was not aware she could do magic yet."
"Calm down, everypony," Celestia finally stated after recovering from her laughing fit, and turned to face me.
I was feeling just about like the joke of the century here. I had not even realized I was using my magic!
"Josey, dear, do you know what you just did?" Celestia asked, and I shrugged dumbly.
"Apparently I used my magic," I responded.
"Not only that, but you proved you're the best pony for the job of dealing with Spritelight," Celestia smiled.
I turned my head down to look at my cereal. "Why's that?"
"Shining, how high was her mana expenditure there?" Celestia asked, and I looked up at the stallion at the unfamiliar sentence.
"Very low. I could barely register she was using any at all," Shining replied, shaking his head in disbelief. "Does this mean what I think it does, Celestia?"
The sun princess turned to her former student. "Mana expenditure is related to what, Twilight?"
Twilight coughed and recited "The amount of mana expenditure per magic act is directly related to the amount of total mana a pony can tap into."
"And a low mana expenditure means that such a pony has? Anypony?" Celestia asked as if she was teaching a class of foals.
"The sheer.. unlimited.. things... we could... do with that.." Rhonda gasped, and everypony's head turned to her.
"Pardon?" Celestia blinked.
"JUST IMAGINE!" Rhonda exclaimed, jumping up on the table and pointing around as if seeing the whole world unfold in front of her. "We could end wars! Bring happiness to the depressed! Rain chocolate from the sky!"
I felt my ears tilt down and winced as a tricolor of magic enveloped Rhonda, sitting her down beside Cadance again. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight frowned at my girlfriend and Cadance wrapped her forelegs protectively around her.
"Ssh," Cadance hushed, and Rhonda slowly calmed down again.
A collective sigh came from around the table and Celestia turned her suddenly weary head toward me. "And this is what happened to Spritelight. It is these, and thoughts along a similar vein, which make her so dangerous."
I nodded slowly and felt everypony except for Cadance looking in my direction again.
"I don't think it's right to take choice away from anypony," I started softly, but then scraped my throat and looked up, directly into Rhonda's eyes. "If Earth changes, it will be because its people decide to change. I can't make that decision for them."
Rhonda opened her mouth, but Cadance put her hoof to it and Rhonda's eyes turned down.
"A superhero back on Earth kept repeating the same sentence; With great power comes great responsibility," I continued, looking away from Rhonda as I saw she got it and looking at each of the ponies around the table in turn, until I looked in Luna's eyes. "I don't understand how I'm suddenly able to use my magic. I don't get this talk about mana. But I do get the gist of the conversation."
Luna smiled weakly under my enduring gaze, and I smiled toward her. "I had a great teacher in Luna," I turned my eyes back to Twilight, "in Twilight," and then finally turned to look at Celestia, "and in Celestia. The show back home taught us so much about how some would abuse their power and only hurt themselves and others in the process."
I paused a moment and felt my tail twitch. "I don't want to be that pony."
Everypony nodded at that. "This is what we all decided, Josey," Celestia offered in a soft tone. "At one point or another the choice comes for us all; do we want to use our power for good, or do we want to force our opinions upon others?"
Luna sniffled and I looked up to see her leaning into Celestia's side, one of Celestia's wings folded around her.
"Luna made a mistake, once. Blinded as she was by her jealousy. As did Twilight, when she forced the citizens of Ponyville to fight over one of her toys," Celestia continued, and I looked up to see Twilight looking away. "But they both returned to doing good. They learned from their mistakes. We're able to keep Equestria a safe place because of their choices."
"And now I must make one," I cut in, knowing where this was headed. "Do I want to help Spritelight by doing everything I can to find her and make her see what she is doing? Giving her the choice to make things right again? Or do I want to hunt her down and kill her for the pain she's caused me and others?"
Celestia nodded at that. "We did not kill Discord. I did not kill my sister Luna. In both cases I chose to give them time to think about what they had done. In the hopes that they would turn for the better."
"Sombra is a lost cause," Shining sighed.
Celestia agreed, "Yes. Unfortunately some are too lost for us to help them. We will have to keep Sombra away from the Crystal Empire for now. But I still have hope he, too, will come to see the error of his ways. It may take a thousand years, or a million. We may not be here when it happens, but one day perhaps."
I nodded in unison with the other ponies around the table. "When Discord came for Rhonda and myself, he made mention of the borders between worlds. Of creatures far worse than him waiting for their time to strike."
Twilight perked up and nodded quickly. "Yes, we read about that in the Crystal Empire library. Worldeaters they're called."
"I don't care what they are called," I shrugged, and looked around the table. "If I find Spritelight. If I manage to help her become good again, or even if I don't. Is there a chance for these things to be locked away again?"
Celestia looked over at Twilight, and everypony else followed her gaze.
"I," Twilight started, looking troubled. "There was no mention of any ritual or spell that locked them away. All the books said was that they would appear when the dimensional walls would break. That they would cause the end of the world."
"Then it is high time I started to look for Spritelight," I decided, pushing up from my cushion. "When do I leave?"
Rhonda jumped up and ran around the table, quickly clinging to both my forelegs. "WE! You mean WE! You're not going alone, Josey! Together forever, remember?"
I winced and looked down, nuzzling my muzzle in against Rhonda's mane and pressing a kiss on top of her head, feeling my tears press against the back of my eyes. "I can't, Rhonda.. You're an Earthpony with no magic potential. What if we were being chased by Earth's governments? What if Spritelight decided to use you as a means to blackmail me?"
Rhonda looked up with tears rolling down her face. "B..but you promised. Y..y.. you promised, Jo... Rho and Jo forever.. You'd always protect me, you said."
I sank down through my hooves and let her hug her forelegs around my neck instead of around my own forelegs. "That's what I'm doing, Rho. You'll be safe here, with the other princesses. Maybe you can visit Ponyville and get Pinkie to teach you how to pull things out of thin air, hmm?"
A tear drooped down my muzzle and I shook it off before it would have landed on Rhonda's back.
"She's right, Rhonda," Celestia spoke gently, her face wrought in pain at the inevitable parting to come. "We will keep you safe here, but Josey needs to go alone."
"It's not fair!" Rhonda cried out, bawling loudly as she clung to me for dear life.
"No, it's not," I sniffled, not able to stop the tears from coming no matter how strong I wanted to appear to her. "But I will make it right, Rhonda. And then we'll be together. Forever."
End of book 1.