//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Training // Story: Dragoning her Hooves // by Richardson //------------------------------// Dawn broke upon Ponyville once more, shattering the illusion of night and that of sleep. Shivering, Twilight awoke within her tent. Despite her size, she had been healing remarkably quickly. She had been out for three days after the incident within the Everfree, and only two more had passed since then. Other than a few bare lines still shaved into her restored coat and a few spots of stitches still left within her hide to help her heal, she was almost whole again. Well, as whole as she ever could be again. She fitfully thought over the whirlwind of events that had happened over the past two days. Barely even a day after Luna had partially explained her plan; she had confronted Cadance behind the library and sweated the truth out of her regarding the fate of the Empire. It hadn't been hard to fit the peg into the proper hole. If there had still been an Empire to protect, Shining would never have left, let alone agreed to lead an expedition. It was cute, and heartwarming to think that they cared enough about her to try and play up the illusion of normality. She didn't need normality, she needed to- "Gngh!" Flash Sentry mumbled in his sleep, stirring as he woke from the sound of Twilight's muffled groan of pain. Shuffling, he buried himself deeper between her raised shoulder blades, letting the fluffy heat envelop him. The dampness of the morning dew had worked its way into their pelts, chilling them more. A chill not unlike the evening of that fateful day. -------------------------------------------------------- "Are you sure, Twilight? I didn't hear anything." Celestia put down the trashy magazine that she had been reading with Twilight, looking up with concern. Her horn lit with a golden glow as she stuffed it underneath their sleeping bags as she prepared for combat. Slowly, the aura of her magic trickled out, wrapping around the zipper of the tent, pulling it down to reveal the darkness beyond the confines of their tent. Tiny clatters rumbled down the walls of their campsite, louder and more insistent than they had been before. The regular clatters of somepony carefully ascending stone and scree. Celestia's eyes narrowed as she extinguished the tent lights, whispering in the sudden dark. "So, we are not alone." Twilight lit her own horn as she climbed out of her sleeping bag, peering through the gap in the door below Celestia's own head. "I think its Trixie." "It could be. It could also be a horror from the vaults. Be on your guard." Celestia gripped the zipper in her magic once more as she prepared combat spells within her mind. The narrow view their door offered gave her little in the way of details to look with. "There is no telling what lies beyond our tent. We will have to be bold. On three, we rush." "One." Twilight stood a little taller, tensing up. "Two." The unicorn adopted a sprinter's stance, lowering her head so she could point her horn at something. "THREE!" They rushed from the tent together, lighting up the empty room with the blinding fury of the noonday sun. At first, it seemed like there was nothing after all. Nothing moved, nothing made a noise. The stained rocks glowed with the sheen of water as rain dripped down from the levels above and cascaded down the rough rocks, making them dark and slick. Rocks tumbled down once more as the unseen climber slipped. The squeak of a mare falling on her rump rang out as a flash of blue brightly shimmered atop the pile. Celestia swung around, lighting up her horn brighter than before to alert Twilight. "There! They're heading towards the vaults!" Twilight galloped ahead, making her way up the treacherous and painful slope. She climbed with a dogged perseverance as gravel began to slide down, continually burying her legs. Squeals of terror gave her motivation as Trixie above climbed for her life; tipping over the upper edge and tumbling down the backside in a terrific clattering and rumble of falling stone. A final yelp echoed in the chamber, followed by the clanging of dozens of stones against a thick metal door. White hooves scooped themselves beneath Twilight's barrel, cradling her against her mentor's soft chest as she found herself snatched up into the air. It was soothing, being within the complete power of her most beloved mentor, but there was no time to dawdle in the moment as Celestia's great wings powered them up and over the scree. No telling as to whether or not the vault doors would hold. There was no chance that they could dare take in caution. "There!" Twilight reached for a flat boulder atop the pile with her forelegs as Celestia swooped down. "That was Trixie! She's got to be under the influence of something!" Celestia released Twilight, unable to land with her beloved pupil due to her size. She flapped once to clear Twilight, only to slam into the roof of the overhang with her head and tumble down. Crashing down, she screamed in pain as she slammed down upon her already sprained ankle, twisting it further as she tumbled down the slope in a tangle of limbs, pinions, and gravel. Dust filled the air as boulders bounded off of her, the great alicorn finding the intense pressure of the rockfall burying much of her body. "Twilight, stop her!" At last, Celestia ground to a halt, pinned beneath a large chunk of rock as Twilight gracefully slid down uneasily, scattering rocks and pebbles as she stiff-leggedly rode a wave of debris. Celestia pushed at the boulder pinning her against the wall, feeling it barely moving with all of the strength of her long white legs. "I'll catch up!" Nodding, Twilight dove over the boulder pinning her mentor, aiming for the open cavern of the opened vault door. Yelping, she tumbled as she found no sure footing, hitting the ground with her shoulder and rolling to a halt within. She panted, pulling herself back to her hooves as she looked down the three paths available to her. Dust was already swirling inwards, obscuring the hoofprints as she looked for the slightest clue. The slightest hint of a yelp from the center corridor gave her direction, and she took off down it, racing to stop Trixie. ------------------------------------------- She didn't even feel the ball the first time it hit her face. Or the second time, for that matter. The third time it bounced off of the sensitive tip of her muzzle, smashing her nose painfully to snap her out of her memory. The thick, heavy dodgeball bounced back to the ground with a hollow, rubbery plonk, rolling across the parched earth of the tent to the trio- no, just a duo of fillies who glared up towards her through tears of anger. Though their parents had kept them away to give them time to settle, it seemed that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo still hadn't forgiven her. Acting with a rapidness that almost seemed instinctual, Twilight carefully laid herself completely flat against the ground, looking down her muzzle with mournful, tear-quivering eyes. Even her wings were splayed out just a bit, open for the crusaders to exact whatever retribution they wanted. Scootaloo started to dart forward, dashing towards Twilight with a growl, only to trip and fall as her tail was snagged by Sweetie. The pegasus filly snarled, trying to yank her tail free. "Leggo! She doesn't belong here anymore!" "Scootaloo! Stop it! She'll squish you like she did Applebloom!" Twilight whined, skittering her head back. "I didn't mean to. I didn't know she was-" "That's not good enough!" "Do you three mind? I'm trying to sleep here!" Flash Sentry clambered to his hooves, looking down upon the fillies below crossly as he stood atop Twilight's prostrate form. Scootaloo paused in shock as she saw him there. "No. No! That's not fair!" She couldn’t even see clearly as angry tears burned in her eyes, and a fire erupted within her chest. Lightning flickered between her feathers, little trails of ozone and smoke rising from her wings as she panted in fury. "How can you do that when Applebloom couldn't!? That's not fair!" She ripped her tail free of Sweetie's grip, pulling her friend over from the force as she leapt at Twilight screaming in anger. Silently, Twilight waited. Compared to the claws of a manticore, the fury of a filly, even a pegasus channeling all the power of her weather magic, was nothing. She silently cried for Scootaloo as the filly howled and punched and bucked her long snout. She could take it. She would take it, for she had absolutely nothing that she could say that would make up for hurting their friend so badly. Just like she had nothing she could say to the citizens of Canterlot. Flash jumped from Twilight's shoulders, swooping down and scooping up the filly in his hooves so that she would beat against his chest instead. "Kid? Kid! Calm down, please!" Flash groaned as he let her curse and wail and spit against him to try and get at Twilight again until she finally tired out and gave up. "Better?" She sniffled. "No." "Good. I would have worried if that had made you feel better." "What?" "Hate shouldn't feel good. It leads to places that not even I want to think about. I've watched more than one guardspony down in the Badlands get hurt or do worse things because of hate." Scootaloo blinked through the burning of her tears, blearily looking up into the guard's face. The feeling of hot runny snot trickled against her upper lip, churned loose from her attempt at a rampage. Sniffling, she tried to suck it back as she wiped with a forehoof. "But she- how can you say that!? She-" "Put your friend Applebloom in the hospital minus a leg, including partially disemboweling her. I know. Twilight is really sorry for it." Flash slowly lowered himself and his filly cargo to the ground, planting Scootaloo firmly against the dirt, pressing his hooves upon her shoulders so she couldn't run away. "But she did it on purpose!" "Did you, Twilight?" "I-... no. I didn't even know she was there. I- I felt something while I was- I was remembering what it had felt like to change. I don't even remember moving, just waking up to blood, and screaming and-" Twilight turned her head away, moving a foreleg carefully to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Case solved, then!" Flash cut her off, stretching out a wing to try and calm her down with easy strokes. Turning to Scootaloo, he took a leg off of her shoulders to pat her on the head. " 'Sides, I hear that they'll be releasing her from the hospital today if her stitches are holding. At least according to her sister." "Heard right, as far as Ah'm concerned." The voice echoed from the entrance to the tent, where two figures stood in the glow of the rising sun and cast deep shadows across the interior. Everypony squinted to see past the morning glare, seeing the golden yellow filly standing there with a new peg leg replacing her left back leg. Behind her, her gentle brother prodded her with her wheelchair again, trying to scoop her up into it. "Ah, knock it off, Macintosh! Ah'm not an invalid. Well, anymore." She ruefully added the last part as she stretched the stump beneath her prosthetic, feeling it sharply sting. "And Ah don’t need yer help in whupping somepony if they needed it, Scoots. And Twilight here? She don't need it. She's been whupping herself plenty from what Ah hear." Applebloom looked at her friends as they made the oddest keening noise, almost like the squeal of fans chasing after their favorite pop pon- oh horseapples. Sweetie Belle was the first to run towards her friend, stopping just short as Applebloom skittered back uncertainly. Scootaloo had no such considerations as she broke free of Flash Sentry's grip, running hellbent for her lost friend. The farm filly had just enough time to yelp in horror before she was tackled and knocked off of her hooves hard enough to send her new leg flying. "Goshdarnitall, you consarned overgrown pigeon! Geddoff 'fore Ah clip them wings of yers!" Applebloom kicked Scootaloo off of her with her good hind leg, crying from the hurting stump beside it and the ache in her belly where stitches had nearly torn free. She didn't look at the prone form of Scootaloo, or the trembling wince of horror as the pegasus realized what she had done. Applebloom looked around for her prosthetic, unable to see it as she rolled onto her back. Gently, a magenta field slowly lowered it onto her chest from above, held there by Twilight's magic. That same field of magic caressed Applebloom, slowly picking her up from the ground to float her into the padded seat of the wheelchair Macintosh had pushed for her. "Twilight? Ya didn't have to." "Yes I did!" "It's not yer fault. Ah'm the hoofbrain here." "Applebloom, I-" "Yer forgiven. Never had tae ask fer it." Applebloom twisted her peg leg back on, wriggling it as she marveled at how strange it felt once more. A hoof pressed her back into her seat as she tried to jump free again as Big Mac decided to cut off her shenanigans at the pass. "Ugh, fine. Ah'll sit here. Like a bump on a frog." "Eeyup." Scootaloo looked between her and Twilight, wondering why her eyes were burning so hotly. "How can you just forgive her like that?" "Same way Ah can forgive ya for knocking mah new leg off and nearly popping me open again just now." Applebloom long-sufferingly sighed as she wondered how she put up with her friends. All the foals in town were crazy. "She didn't mean to, an' neither did ya.. 'Sides, now Ah can make the best new leg ya ever done seen! Just ya wait." Sweetie Belle elbowed Scootaloo in her ribs, trying to get her attention. "Ow! Ow! What?" The unicorn filly rolled her eyes, looking to Applebloom. Her chair-bound friend sighed, shaking her head. Sweetie elbowed Scootaloo again, jerking her head towards Applebloom before miming putting on a pouting face while fluttering her eyelashes as she assumed a begging position. "I don't speak mime..." Sweetie grunted in frustration, and twisted Scootaloo to face Applebloom. "Apologize!" Scootaloo flinched, sinking down to the ground as she realized that she still hadn't even tried to make up for bowling Applebloom over. She averted her gaze, wondering why it was so hard to see all of a sudden past the blurriness. "I'm sorry." "Well of course yer forgiven! Who'dya take me for, Tiara? It'd be darn awful of me to forgive Twilight and not forgive ya. Now git yerself over here so Ah can hug ya." Applebloom threw her forelegs for her friends, and they hesitantly trotted over into her reach. Gasps escaped them as Applebloom crushed them into her hug, nuzzling them with relief that her own ordeal was mostly over. Twilight sniffed a little, awkwardly standing up. "How did a little filly like you get to be so wise?" "Cutie Pox. Babs Seed. Gabby Gums. That darn talent show... Take yer pick. Ah figure it got so darn trampled into mah head that Ah had to learn something 'bout forgiveness." Applebloom poked her head over those of her friends, resting her chin on their manes as she ticked off the number of rather notable incidents that had occurred on her watch. "I guess so." Flash elbowed Twilight in the leg as he heard the note of melancholy in her voice. "But Ah AIN'T gonna forgive ya if ya keep on getting all mopey and 'woe is me' whenever ya screw up! Stop it!" Applebloom threw up her hoof accusingly at Twilight, letting Scootaloo fall to the ground as her squeezing death-grip was released. Flash stepped forward, aiming to lecture back as he stomped and ground his hoof into the ground. "Young filly I-" "Ah'm not done! Ah've been invalid, not under a rock! Ah know ya have a job to do, and yer never gonna be ready for it if ya let the slightest thing set ya back! So yer gonna screw up! We all do, part'a life! But if Ah hear ya've been moping again, Ah'll sick Granny on ya! Yer still an honorary Apple! That means ya get the Apple Family Punishments, too! Granny'll take ya to the spare barn and tan yer rump if she catch's ya slacking off, especially tae do that!" Big Macintosh grabbed the wheelchair handle with his teeth, getting ready to wheel Applebloom off for a stern talking to about respect. "Awfully sorry. Don't know what's in her head." "But Big Macintosh-" "EeNOPE!" "No, she's right. I- I shouldn't be doing this. It's so... selfish of me, thinking I'm the only one with problems in the world. Okay, they are kind of big problems." Twilight looked back at her long body, feeling the ache in her belly still where she was busily healing. "But I can't just ignore the fact that everypony needs me. Thank you. Go easy on her, please Big Mac?" He paused, contemplating over what she had said. After a few minutes, he nodded once and pulled back from the wheelchair. "Ya done now, Twilight?" The dragoness paused, and then hesitantly nodded to the little filly. The graceful sweep of her neck bent down as she lowered her head until she was nose to nose with Applebloom. Golden hooves snapped up, giving her as much of a hug as the little filly could manage. "Yer family. Ya've got a job, and Ah want to see ya come home again." Fur ruffled beneath Applebloom's legs as Twilight pulled herself free to nod. "I will. Spike! A new checklist!" Twilight blinked, looking around as she heard no reply. "Spike? Spike!?" Flash scribed with his mouth on a new scroll, making down a couple of items on the list for Twilight. Chiefly, 'Survive; Train Up; Stop Being Mopey'. The gentle tip of one of Twilight's talons stroked his back, chilling him slightly. "I've got the list, Twilight." "Could you help me find Spike? He's here! He should be here!" Applebloom pointed towards the open fields that often served as the Ponyville Fairgrounds. "Last Ah saw him; he was headin' down to the fairgrounds. Ah would have thought ya would be down there with 'im. They're setting all that up fer ya to train up before you go, gonna have a big Fair about ya becoming an even bigger hero. Ah think it was supposed to start an hour ago, yer gonna be late." "Late!?" Applebloom's eyes opened wider as she realized she had used the L-word around Twilight. Magic gently shoved her and Big Macintosh out of the way as Twilight flung Flash Sentry onto her back with another tendril of magic. "We're going to be LATE!" "Now easy now, Ah'm sure that the Princesses won't mind ya being a little behind schedule." "Auuugh! Come on!" Twilight galloped out of the tent as Flash clung to her back desperately trying to hang onto her as the plain of her back undulated with each rolling stride. "Late! Late! How could I be LATE?" "Well, that went well." Scootaloo coughed up a cloud of dust she had inhaled, slapping herself on her own back. "Well, I hope you're not too mad at me." "Ah'm not. And Ah've missed three an' a half weeks of crusading." Sweetie Belle smiled vaguely as she looked to Applebloom. "Hey! I've got an idea!" "Cutie Mark Crusaders, Heroes?" "Yah!" "Yeah!" Big Macintosh shook the last of the motion-induced sickness out of his head just in time to see the trio escaping down the road as Scootaloo and Sweetie pushed their friend towards the treehouse. Oh lordy and Celestia, he was doomed. --------------------------------------------------------- "Late, late, late-late, LAAAAAAATE!" Twilight galloped down the road, trailing a dust storm behind her as she ran. She was late, TARDY! Celestia would be disappointed in her; she was missing what was probably her alternate graduation exam! How could she be late for the most important day of her life!? All of Equestria was depending on her, and she was going to be LAAAAAATE! "Twilight! Slow down! It can't be that important, they didn't tell me to wake you up yesterday!" Flash flapped like a flag in the wind as he held onto her back. The whipping wind was too much for him to see where they were going, especially with the dust his plus-sized friend was kicking up in her mad dash to get to the fairgrounds. "Twilight, stop already! Whoa! WHOOOOAH!" "Can't stop, LATE! Surprise exam, my graduation to test my magic!" Flash yelped and ducked down as the ridge of the back of Twilight's neck snapped off a branch in front of him as it undulated with her pace. The oak wood bounced from Twilight's form without the slightest attention on her part, barely missing Flash as he clung desperately to her. He called up over the wind once more. "Celestia wouldn't do that! Didn't you say the other day that she was already graduating you!" "Graduation needs exam! Exam means studying that I missed! Oooh, what have I done!?" "It's not even seven in the morning yet! I think you're over-reacting! Stop!" Flash looked up again, his eyes widening as he saw what was ahead. "No, really! STOP!" Shining Armor stood in their path with a giant roll of cotton candy gripped in his magic as he wide-eyedly stared at his oncoming doom mid-bite. He ripped his chunk free as his magic flared, throwing up a great barrier on instinct before Twilight's one-dragon stampede. Talons dug into the ground as Twilight planted all of her paws as stiffly as she could, kicking up plumes of dirt as she skidded and slid to a halt. A bit too late, though, as she slammed against the barrier with earth-shaking force, cracking the first dome, and getting stuck in the second one that Shining Armor hastily erected to keep her from falling on him. Valiantly, the former commander of the Canterlot Royal Guard stood back up from his cower of 'Oh Celestia, my Sister is about to squish Me' and straightened himself out. Tiny jabs of his tongue pulled the cotton candy from his mouth as he walked over to where his sister was stuck like a fly in honey amidst his shield. "Hey, Twiley! You're two hours early! Did Applebloom tell you the wrong time to be here?" Twilight panted as her heart finished its marathon, mouthing "Early?" as she did. "Yeah, the townsponies decided to hold a big event to see what you can do now. It's going to be great! We were going to start at nine in the morning to let you sleep in so this could be a surprise, but we can start early, too!" Shining Armor waved his cotton candy around, gesturing over the hill. He pulled his sweet treat back, absentmindedly biting on it without looking. It had turned kinda bland though, like hot air. Hey- "Twilight, I don't think your brother was done with that." Flash woozily climbed over Twilight's shoulder, tumbling down into the dirt road as the force field was collapsed by Shining Armor. "But maybe you should have come yourself to tell her, Bossman." Twilight mumbled something through the giant wad of sugary mess she had in her mouth, sticking out her tongue to display her utter lack of care on the matter as she did. Straightening up, she loomed over her brother as she swallowed down the last of it, sighing happily as she began to wake up from the instant sugar buzz. "Well, that would explain the cackling laugh and how she rubbed her hooves together. Alright, let me show you the rest of the way Twiley. And you owe Cadey a new Mega-Sugarsplosion Cotton Candy stick, by the way." Shining climbed the hill, gesturing with the denuded nub of the rock candy core of his treat's stick. A smile slowly grew on his face as he imagined Twilight's imminent reaction. Twilight grumbled as she ran up the cost of bits in her mind for the pony-sized candy ball. "Well, you shouldn't have been eating HER treat, Shining. She likes... me?" Twilight shuddered to a halt as she crested the hill. The dragoness's jaw dropped as she beheld the transformation the Ponyville fairgrounds had undergone. On the side nearest town, a series of great pavilions had been erected for food and ponies that had come to see her humiliate herself learning new techniques, or otherwise amusingly injure herself. Cadance was there as well, proudly wearing the Crystal Heart in her pertrayl as she greeted the large number of her subjects who had been resettled in Ponyville. Twilight's wings drooped back to her sides and laid flat as she failed to spot her mom, or her father, or her friends and visiting advisors. Wait! There was Celestia, on the far hill on the other side of the fairgrounds, looking right at her. A startled look laid upon the solar alicorn's face as Twilight started to raise a paw to wave at her. A flash of golden light enveloped the white form, fading away to Twilight's dismay and confusion as the dragoness realized that Celestia had teleported away rather than wave back. "What? What did I do wrong?" Flash Sentry swooped in, landing beside her. "Probably nothing. I keep hearing from Princess Luna that she has been kicking herself in all hours of the day over what happened to you. She's probably too ashamed of herself to face you, not anything on your part." Twilight blinked, perking up somewhat as she realized the implications. Celestia wasn't disappointed in her, but in herself? "Remind me to pay Pinkie to 'Huggervention' her." "I can do that." The trio slowly walked down to the fairgrounds, growing acutely aware of how the heavy thudding of Twilight's paws could be felt for almost a mile as everypony stopped and turned to stare at them. Ponies chatting beneath the awnings silenced themselves, turning about to face her as she awkwardly stood at the edge of the grounds. The eyes fixed upon her ran a gamut of emotions that lead from joyful to resentfully grudging acceptance. It all grew to be a bit too much for the still freshly minted dragoness, and she found her paws turning her about to run back to her nice safe tent by the library when the lasso came for her. "YEEEEE-HAAAAW! C'mere now, lil' draggie!" Applejack's drawling voice twanged through the relative silence as her lasso toss caught around the twin horns atop Twilight's head. Twilight reared up in shock, yanking Applejack into the air for a moment to slap against her side. The earth pony mare neighed in shock and kicked herself off of Twilight, scrabbling for the safety of the ground. "Whoa! Whoa, easy now, sugarcube! Don't you bolt! Stop it!" "Yeah! You Pinkie Promised to not run away anymore!" Pinkie tapped Twilight on the head, having somehow climbed up the dragoness's spine without being noticed. The baker dodged the panicked swipe from Twilight as she waved a floppy dog-eared notebook between her eyes. "I've got a really cool training montage set up and everything!" "Private Pie! Front and center!" Velvet Sparkle looked like her horn was about to blow off into Low Equiss Orbit from sheer blood pressure. She had been dealing with the Madness of the Pie all morning, and only shuddered slightly as she timed Pinkie's zipping transit from atop Twilight. "We will not be doing a 'Training Montage', Private Pie! This is a military assessment of your aptitudes and skills and special training for Twilight Sparkle, understood?" "Yes, Ma'am!" Pinkie snapped to attention, going from a messy private to immaculate in her movements as she saluted the older mare perfectly. "Good. Princess Luna needs to see the five of you in the far pavilion." Velvet Star pointed down the length of the fairgrounds to a blue and white pavilion which remained shrouded in the darkness of night. Loud, earth-shaking steps followed Pinkie's bouncing escape for a moment, before a light pink field snatched up a certain dragoness's tail. "Not you, Twilight. Your friends. Follow me." Velvet snatched the lasso from around Twilight's horns, tossing it back to Applejack. Twilight whimpered slightly, turning about to follow her mother towards the courses laid out on the other end of the fairgrounds. String-lines were hung between pony-high stakes stabbed into the ground, and beyond them the ground itself seemed to oddly writhe and churn, as if something moved beneath the surface. Ahead, at the start of the courses, Mustari stood upon four hoof-sized pillars, perfectly keeping his balance. The sandwalker's robes still shimmered with trapped sand grains, even as every little gust and eddy of the morning breeze scattered more of the sparkling material from within his garments. Though he stood facing the rising sun with his head bowed, he somehow instinctively knew exactly when to speak up. "Come, Sparkle. Tell me what you know of my homeland." Velvet pointed to him, nudging one of her daughter's legs forward before stepping back and to one side. Twilight tip-toed forward gingerly, wincing as she heard something fall down and break in the distance. Mustari turned to her, somehow carefully balancing himself as he turned around on the tiny poles that he stood upon. "It's a desert land, saddled between the two northern mountain ranges of the Zebrica continent. Those peaks run from east to west, open to the East Ocean on one side and it is blocked off by one of the World Peas in the west. The ponies there believe in Faust, the All-Maker who wrote everything into existence and who taught them right from wrong in their religion." Twilight recited most from memory, calling up much from world geography lessons with Celestia. And yet, there were blanks that she couldn't explain, leaving her with an incomplete picture of the country. "Anything more?" "No. I'm sorry if that isn't enough." "Do not be. Faust weaves the wind of fate. For luck, it seems that she has kept the abilities of our homeland from you and many others. Now, she wills that you shall learn the ways of the mighty Sandwalkers, masters of the Earthpony arts." Mustari seemed to stand taller before Twilight as the invisible wind that always touched his robes ripped harder against them. "The Earthpony Arts? Like... a form of magic?" Twilight's eyes opened slightly and dilated as her breath hitched in her throat. "Perhaps it is. Surely you have noticed your bulk, have you not?" Velvet butted in at that, bristling slightly as she jumped to her daughter's defense. "Did you just call my Twilight fat?" "Merely large. Does she not shake the earth with her great size? She is one of the great spirits now. All the earth trembles in her presence unless she wills it not to. She is great, and mighty. Her merest touch is power incarnate and she can destroy simply by walking nearby." Twilight leaned in to Mustari, her smile growing uncomfortably wide and toothy. "So you're going to teach me how to walk quietly?" "No. I shall teach you how to walk without moving. You have the magic of the Earth and the Dragon. Tell me, have you noticed yourself moving?" The grey sandwalker's eyes betrayed the smile he hid within himself. "I haven't moved." "The ground that has accepted you into its eager embrace would say otherwise." Twilight looked down as she realized she wasn't craning her neck nearly as much as before. The ground loomed close as she discovered her legs to have disappeared into the dirt until her belly was halfway immersed into the frothed surface of the dirt. It was a vice-like grip that she struggled against, straining with her immense power against what felt like stone molded around her paws as she yelped in surprise. "I should be able to get free! What's happening!?" Twilight summoned strength from deep within herself, pulling on a foreleg with all her might until it ripped free from the soil sucking at it. She planted it on solid ground, pulling her other foreleg free with great effort even as her hind end sank under the ground until it all froze solid around her. "And now I'm stuck entirely." "This is but one technique that we sandwalkers have mastered. The desert hides great rivers running beneath it from the World Peak. Rivers that return the sands to the seas and sip from the surface. To walk within the desert, one must walk without hoofsteps in the sand." Mustari slowly slid back to the ground as the pillars upon which he stood returned to mere sand and collapsed beneath his weight. "I would appreciate it if you would free my daughter." Velvet prodded at the rippled surface around Twilight, stepping back as it shifted ever so slightly. "In time. She will be able to free herself when she taps into her Earth and Dragon magics." Mustari carefully poked Twilight on the nose and stepped back, waiting for Twilight to respond to his challenge. "I have placed you within my trap. Now I will teach you to escape it." Twilight snorted once, curls of smoke rising from her nostrils as a deep growl built within her. "Oh, hey Mom! Uh- did I miss something?" Spike stopped behind Twilight as he walked up with a bucket of popcorn as large as himself in paw. "No really, are you taking some kind of crazy mud bath?" "Spike, get your Grandmother a shovel." ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Tae get this straight, ya want tae learn how Ah'd kill somepony? Why would Ah want tae kill anypony?" Applejack looked at the dummy positioned beside her as Luna, Shining Armor, and Redtail looked on at her with shared exasperation beneath the shade of the tent. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Lightning poured forth from the polychromatic pegasus's wings, incinerating the test dummy in moments. Dash kept pouring on the power, reducing it to a charry smell and a puddle of plastic forlornly bubbling on the ground beside her hooves. "Rainbow Dash, cease! You have properly demonstrated!" Luna caught the lightning with her wings, adsorbing it into her own pegasus magic as Dash let it run wild by mistake. The arc of energy flashed between them until Dash finally relaxed her wings and let the power flow away from her. The lunar diarch turned to Redtail and Shining Armor, enjoying the dumbfounded looks upon their faces. Dash turned around, wondering why she was being gaped at for a simple pegasi trick. "What? I just pretended my friends were in danger." --------------------------------------------------------------- "Must I darling?" "Yes, Rarity. This is just an assessment." "But killing is so... violent! And vulgar! And so very final, I can't simply take such a thing back! I should never use my training for such a vile thing." Redtail glowered, his gaze shadowed beneath the brim of his Luftguard hat. "Assume it will gut somepony you love if you do not. It is consumed by the need, and no other option shall work." He sat patiently, waiting for Rarity to do something. He wasn't expecting the fashionata to do anything, she was too pampered to- Where had the dummy gone? Redtail partially leaned up over the table, looking around for any sign of the lost practice tool. A dozen pieces littered the ground, the massacre having happened so fast that even his fast-acting eyes had not seen it. Rarity sat before her handiwork, crying as she whispered over and over to herself. "For Sweetie..." ------------------------------------------------------------- After she had figured out how to tap into her newly accessible magics, things had gone on swimmingly enough. Well, perhaps a little too literally. Climbing out of the magic quicksand trap had been easy. She had found her dragon magic as the little burning core of love and anger near her heart that lit whenever she thought of her friends or family. Especially Flash. Her earth pony magics had been bound up around the little ball of stubbornness she had become all too familiar with over the past two years and that had caused her all too much grief at the hooves of Pinkie. Those two together? She had been creating glass sculptures as easily as one would work a stiff pile of pottery clay. She had done amazing things, like stomping a hoof to shoot a jagged pillar of rock out of the ground or pull things under with a current of sand. But despite all of that there was one technique that eluded her. "Don't give up, Twilight! Keep slogging!" Flash helpfully called down from above on his soft and safe cloud with Spike resting atop him. "Yeah, Mom! Don't let that dirt stop you!" The idea was to turn the ground selectively soft just beneath her paws momentarily to soften the blows of her steps so that she wouldn't shake the world every time she moved. It would be like walking on pillows if it worked right. If it worked right. The trick was to avoid putting too much power into it or else the ground would soften too far. And she wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle without her annoying tendency to severely overpower her spells. Again. "C'mon, Mom, you're over your shoulders but the flag isn't that far! You can get it!" Spike's cheering was getting slightly irritating to her nerves as she all but swam through what was supposed to be solid ground up to her chin. Her course was meant to test her agility and grasp of the spell by making her carefully trod through a forest of eggs balanced on poles. And while she could honestly say that for the first time she had failed to knock any down, her movement was starting to make her wonder if she had a future as a tuber after all. "Private Sparkle! Unless you're showing us your new potato impression, pull yourself out of the ground and try again!" --------------------------------------------------- "Really?" Pinkie grumpily asked as she glared at the trio judging her. Well then, if they really wanted that kind of a party then fine, she'd give it to that poor dummy. Standing up on her hind legs was practiced and easy for her, as was pulling forth her party cannon with one hoof whilst withdrawing a cannonball in the other. She held the cannon upright so she could load and ignored the squishing and whoopie cushion noises the ball made as it rolled to the bottom. Pinkie whirled her refitted cannon about, putting herself between it and the camp while still retaining an excellent center of mass shot. Right off into the Everfree Forest. Without further ado, she fired grimly, turning the practice dummy into tiny shards scattered across the side of the tent leading to the great hole she had punched in the side. A tiny cough escaped Shining Armor as he considered what Pinkie carried with her. "What? I grew up on the edge of the badlands. Need I go on?" ------------------------------ Applejack planted her forehooves into the loam of the ground, cutting grass apart with the edges of her hooves as she threw her weight over her forelegs to pivot. She spun herself around that center point, pointing her uncoiling hind legs directly at the dummy. Steel and plastic-coated horseshoes delivered several thousand pounds of force and sent the dummy flying across the tent while breaking up into a dozen pieces. It had taken her several tries to work herself up to the point of bucking it with the intent to kill. It just wasn't the Apple way. She had to think of it as a timberwolf or a certain dragon just to be able to pull it off. "Now, would somepony explain mind 'splaining tae me why Ah'm bucking this thing like Ah'm trying tae kill it?" Luna silenced Redtail with a muting spell, preventing him from interrupting her to shove his talons up his beak. "Applejack, you will have to kill on this expedition. Hopefully, you will only have to destroy monsters; but, I cannot discount the chance that some of the peoples of this world may be under Tirek's dread thrall. Nor can I dismiss the chance that some may attack us because they contain not even the slightest shred of Harmony within them." Luna trotted around the table, coming close to Applejack to drape a wing over the farmpony's shoulders with tender care. "I am afraid that none of you will be innocent at the end of this." "Wait! What about Fluttershy?" Shining Armor winced, pulling at the collar of his uniform. "Well..." ---------- "NOPONY! HAS! THAT! RIGHT! ---------- "I wouldn't worry about her." ------------------------------ Redtail stalked across the fairgrounds in a foul and irritated mood from the strange mixed bag that was 'Equestria's Finest'. Sparkle was nowhere to be found for her own test of will, or the lessons in flight that he was almost certainly going to have to trick her through. Grumbling ground rumbled behind him for just a moment, but far more vexing to him was the way that the crowd tittered with laughter as he turned about to investigate. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Deep breaths were his guide, in and let the anger out. It did not matter that everyone around him was blisteringly incompetent, so long as he remained focused. He took to wing, spotting the General and her Sandwalker co-instructor sunning themselves upon a freshly created sandstone pillar without a care or any sign of their student. Beside them, Lt. Cmdr. Sentry held a book upon a fishing rod off of a cloud hovering at their level as the whelpling sat upon his back reading a comic. "Where is she?" Redtail bristled as he swooped down from the air to solidly land beside them upon the wide pillar. Guffaws rippled through the air again, frustrating him further. General Star smirked as she coyly sat up to directly look into his eyes as she innocently asked a counter-question. "Where is who?" "Your species-confused dragon! You two had had one job! One job to-" Redtail trailed off as the crowd erupted into full-blown laughter once more. Redtail swirled about as something brushed against his tail teasingly, taunting him even. "Who did that? Who is the pony who just signed their own obituary?! I did not come halfway around this shell-breaking world just for some jack-naped foal to lose the Celestia-bedamned dragon I was supposed to train!" Velvet grumbled as she prayed for patience from Celestia to deal with her counterpart. She knew she shouldn't snap at him, no matter how much he tempted her so. Rational, stay calm, and don't let him get to her. "A new development arose with my Daughter, kommandur. She passed the tests we developed for her abilities and then discovered a novel new use for them that had not been considered." Velvet smiled as she looked back at something behind the red-feathered griffon before her. "She's impressed me so far." Redtail's expression twitched. "How darling for you. But that still did not tell me where your 'daughter' is. I couldn't care less about what in the name of the seven uttering hills the overgrown roaster is doing, tell me where she is now!" A massive talon delicately tapped him upon the shoulder. "Right behind you." Redtail screeched like a surprised chicken as he flipped around in shock. Twilight rose from the ground behind him like some form of strange dragon-tree. His beak dropped open as he witnessed her slow and languid rise from the ground, and how the earth seemed to ripple around her like water upon the surface of a pond. The dragoness looked surprisingly humble, with a sheepish smile upon her muzzle as she explained. "I kept on overpowering one of the spells that Sandwalker Mustari taught me. It was supposed to let me walk without disturbing anyone, but I kept turning the ground into water for myself." Redtail clapped the two halves of his beak together, failing to keep from grinding them together as his two so-called counterparts snickered at his back. Unprofessional fools. "Private Sparkle, front and center!" He could tell that the dragoness had learned something after all as she finished pulling her tail from the embrace of the earth and marched over to him. She knew something of military discipline, given the way that she neatly drew herself to a stance of attention before him. He circled her steadily, looking over her as he gauged the level of her fitness from the musculature of her body based off of his knowledge of griffon physiology compared to that of dragons. Behind him, Mustari nudged at Velvet, nodding towards the pavilion where Luna was still testing Twilight's friends for their military aptitudes. She shot a look to Flash and Spike, who both were still goofing off to one side. The sandwalker made an insistent motion with his head, telling her to take them. She hesitated, pointing a hoof first towards her daughter, then to her own eyes before clopping her hooves together and grinding them together. Mustari smiled and nodded back, pointing to Redtail's back while gesturing out a throat-cutting gesture. Velvet cleared her throat once more pointedly in Flash and Spike's direction. "Well, I think Twilight can handle herself. Why don't you two come with me while I check in on Twilight's friends?" The trio departed as Redtail finished his inspection of his latest 'student'. Behind him, Mustari watched on as the irritable griffon broke into a hover, all the while muttering to himself. "So you might have the body of someone not completely hopeless. Now spread those wings!" As Redtail's barked order resounded through the air, Twilight's body reacted on instinct. The massive spread of her new wings snapped open with a concussive thunderclap of overpressure and rose up into the air, kicking dust up from the disturbed earth that rushed out from where she stood to rattle the tents and pavilions of the fairgrounds. Leathery membrane stretched from her shoulders to nearly the base of her tail, covered in a thin and fuzzy coat along much of its length behind the set of feathers that graced the front of her wings to streamline them. Distributed amongst the width of her wings were cartilage bracers that ran from her wing bones to the trailing edges of her wings. With a great elbow to give her wings a place to fold from, the last quarter of her wings were made of a series of smaller membranes held together by five long and slender bones that acted as a fine control surface. "Finally! She does have sense! Now fly!" Twilight paled, the color fading from the fur upon her face as she faced the difficulty of what she had been asked to do. "F-F-Fly?" Redtail glowered as he mimicked Twilight's stutter of fear. "Fuh-fuh-fly? NO! I want you to fall with style!" He waited for several moments for Twilight's slight reaction before snapping at her once more. "Yes! You overgrown fuzzy chicken! I want you to fly! Up, down; Up, down; UP, DOWN! Hop on it!" "I can't! I haven't studied how to yet!" "Well then break out the carving knife for me, because you might as well be roasted dinner to Tirek's beasts!" "I don't know how! I haven't studied the flight characteristics of my new wing structure yet! I need to do practice flapping and controlled glides and-" "You! Do! Not! Study! FLIGHT! Do, or do not! No study, no controlled anything! Act on instinct!" Mustari lept from his platform as he saw how badly Redtail was reacting to his charge's lack of knowledge. The griffons of Raptoria were known for turning flight into an instinctive act from an early age, and he had an uncomfortable feeling as to what he was planning to do. "Kommandur, wait just a moment!" "I will not wait while she endangers us all with her cowardice!" He snorted as Twilight took a step back under the force of the griffon's verbal assault. "Yes, you heard me! Pull those wings over your eyes and hide back in your tent! Who ever heard of a winged creature that can't fly? What's next, a twenty pig marching band?" Mustari leapt up onto a series of flowing sand stairs, trying to grab the kommandur's tail before he started something incredibly stupid. "That is enough kommandur, cease before you bring down her wrath!" Redtail ripped his tail free from the sandwalker's grasp, screeching at him from above. "I will not cease! She has no wrath, no passions to rage! This sorry excuse for Faust's favor to firebreathers isn't even a dragon where we need her to be one!" He angrily pointed to Twilight, who no longer was cowering there. Claws flexed against the dirt beneath her great bulk, each breath she took rumbled with the far-off thunder of an approaching thunderstorm. Twilight trembled in place, but stood taller as she raised her head to look eye to eye with Redtail. "No." "No? You're a foal in a dragon costume! The only pony you've hurt was in your sleep! You couldn't kill even if your precious friends were on the line!" He smirked as Twilight's fur bristled a little more at his last comment and as smoke simmered above her head. Just a little bit more and he'd break through. The friends, they were the key. "Are they even your friends anymore, or are they the hoard you'll lose because you can't even get a job done?" Friends. Hoard? Protect. "You take that back." "Make me." Neither noticed Mustari running for his life as they continued to argue. "Even your pansy pretty ponyfriend Fluttershy has more spine than you do!" "What did you do to her? She's the kindest, most forgiving mare I know! She wouldn't hurt anypony!" "Tell that to the training dummy she ripped the throat out of with her bare teeth!" Twilight stood taller as dark shadows rippled across her coat. Smoking, the tips of her mane tossed in the miniature whirlwind that had begun to blow all around her. Ponyville residents of all walks of life began to scramble for safety as they recognized the signs of an impending meltdown on the dragoness normally so calm. "You hurt my friends, didn't you?" "Your friends all were twice the pony or dragon that you are! You don't deserve them!" "Enough! Both of you! This has crossed a line and-oof!" Mustari found himself swept out from between the pair by a careful sweep of the dragoness's claws as she cleared the battlefield. "I deserve what is mine! My friends chose me!" "Chose you? That's what you think? You're just a sapphire-sucking pet! You are not their friend! You are their tool, their weapon! And you'll be put away when they are done with-oof!" Redtail clutched his side as he was knocked through the air by a pounce from Mustari, who knocked him clear of a wild swipe from Twilight's paw. "Sparkle, cease!" "I deserve my friends, I fought for them! They love me! They came for me!" Twilight swiped with her paw, growling in frustration as she failed to strike down the interloper who was trying to take her horde from her. All around them, natives of Ponyville ran for their lives from the sight of Twilight out for blood. Mustari rolled with the kick that Redtail gave him and watched with frustration as the crazy fool tested the patience of Faust once more by launching himself back into the air above the furious dragoness. He wasn't going to be enough to stop the pair if they kept diving deeper into each other's throats. But who- her friends! They could stop her if they could calm her fears! He turned tail and ran for the pavilion where they were still being tested and tried. He didn't even notice the tremble in Twilight's wings as he ran as fast as he could. "Is that the best you can do? My one-taloned grandmother could strike me down three times in your two strokes! You aren't even worth the attention of Princess Celest-aaugh!" Redtail started climbing for his life as Twilight let loose a primal scream and unleashed a stream on incandescent blue-white flame that seared the fur from the tip of his tail. He looked back from a thousand hooves up and cackled gleefully as Twilight's wings began to beat and push her up into the skies with thunderclaps like those of an exploding volcano. He had gotten her into the air and flying. What was his step 2 again? --------------------------------------- Luna rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as she resisted the urge to plant her face in her hooves as Pinkie looked at her unstealthily. Well, she thought Pinkie was staring at her. It was hard to tell with the Pinking Horror's eyes hidden behind her pair of glowing orange goggles. "Pinkamina, despite what the stories and comics say 'night vision' and wearing a latex bodysuit does not make oneself innately stealthy. Especially when the suit squeaks like a thousand dread balloons." "Awwww." They had all been like Pinkie to one degree or another. All except for Fluttershy. Somehow the butter colored pegasus (she had to find out one day if she tasted like butter as well) had somehow slipped up to atop her back and had asked her if it was okay that she had gotten her. Luna swore that she had developed several new supernovae in her mane and tail from that little stu- "Princess, Generals! Come quickly, Kommandur Redtail has done the most foolish thing that her could have!" Mustari's intrusion startled everypony as he burst into the pavilion, including Fluttershy who hid within Luna's voluminous tail once more. Shining threw down his clipboard and teleported his armor back onto himself as his mother and Flash scrambled from where they had been laying. "What did he do?" As if to answer his question, a breathtakingly terrifying roar erupted outside, shaking the pavilion with enough force to force everypony inside to clutch their ears. Spike was the first to recover, scrambling for the entrance flaps in a dead run "Mom!" Velvet's magic whipped out, snagging his tail to drag him back into her embrace. "Stay here. Flash, you go!" Nodding, he threw the flaps open in time to witness the blinding flare of light rising high into the skies as Twilight unleashed an inferno nearly as intense as the sun in an attempt to charbroil Redtail mid-flight. He gasped, falling back as even he had to blink back the afterimages from his eyes despite the natural pegasi protection against glare. Fumbling, his hoof pulled the crystalline earpiece from his armor and reinserted it into his ear. "Dash, grab the idiot and get him back to the Princess! I've got Twilight! C'mon Fluttershy!" Fluttershy gasped and leapt into the air ahead of Flash alongside her chromatic friend who rocketed up into the air. Below them, Cadance galloped across the fairgrounds in a horrified sprint, glancing up towards her favorite sittee whenever she could. "Shining! What's happened to her?! One moment she was talking with him, and when I looked up again from helping one of our ponies, it was like she had gone feral!" "He deducted that Twilight wisely hoarded friends instead of gold." Mustari replied as he finally caught his breath. He prayed to Faust that he would find the time to restore his old fitness before fighting tooth and hoof once more. "He used them against her in a plot to use her own draconic instincts to train her far quicker than what we would otherwise take." "Flash, you catch that?" Shining shouted into the transmission crystal buried in his leg armor. Flash's distorted reply came quickly. "I copy, over! Don't shout, Bossman!" "Make sure he lives! We shalt kill him ourselves!" Luna angrily commanded as her mane sparked and frizzled with arcs of magic. ---------------------------------------- High above, Redtail dove into a corkscrew dive avoiding the jaws gaping close behind his tail. Air screamed over the primaries of his wings as he threw himself into a turn that blew vapor in a great puff of instant clouds that were instantly wiped from existence by the gout of plasma that erupted through where he had just been. Instincts screamed at him, and he banked left while pulling up just in time to be able to plant his hindpaws atop the bridge of her snout to leap away. She either had raw and immense talent, or sheer power to keep up with him, but she didn't have the experience to catch him. Wind rushed past him as he pushed for the Rainboom Barrier, looking to leave her in his contrail. He could do it, he had the power. But he hadn't expected it to come so quickly. Colors burst before his eyes, spreading out in a shockwave of rainbow energy reaching to Canterlot and beyond. My, he had never expected there to be a streak of rainbow in his vision from the bowshock of his- oh shards. Dash plowed into Redtail at one and a half times the speed of sound. Only her projected aura of pegasus magic stood between the pair and a messy kinetic death as her momentum instantly overcame his own. Rainbow pile-drove him towards the ground, streaking past Twilight's infuriated form in a roar of displaced air. She didn't have a moment to spare as she felt the unthinking flames lick at the tip of her tail, melting her colors together at that point. The griffon could only snarl as he was driven towards the ground below. He could have found out whether or not she could control herself; found out if she really could save the world! It wasn't like she had a chance of hitting him! Their flight at last slowed to sane levels as they approached the ground, leveling out from the vertical dive they had been in. Dash bucked him away from herself, throwing him to the ground with her hindlegs so that the fields of Luna, Cadance, and Velvet catch him. He looked up at her from where he floated and past her to the dragoness high above them who hovered ashamedly as a firey-looking yellow dot hovered next to her and an orange dot atop her. Winking out as one, the fields holding him evaporated like the morning dew and dropped him unceremoniously to the dirt. He crawled back to being atop his talons as his chromatic 'rescuer' slammed to the ground before him in a perfect four point landing. Redtail pointed a talon at her, spluttering out his anger. "You! What did you think you were doing?" "We wouldst very much like to know that ourself, Gossenheimer Redtail!" Luna thundered as she dragged him before herself. "What was going through thoust tiny, malformed brain when thoust had thy utterly brilliantly suicidal plan to provoke fair Sparkle?!" Luna towered above him, crackling with the fury of a scorned alicorn. Her mane, normally a slice of the night skies, was drowned out by thunderous storm clouds that further betrayed the inner fury within her. And her gaze, her gaze was more like that of a cockatrice's than a pony's. "Nay, don't answer us that. Convince us that thoust shouldst not grace our statue garden for thy utter stupidity!" The rest of Twilight's friends rushed up behind Luna at last, having struggled to remotely keep up with her. Behind even them, Twilight herself floundered into a slow landing and gracelessly stumbled to a halt. She looked despondent, as if she felt that she had personally incinerated an entire orphanage of special needs foals. "Applejack, I guess you always were right. I'll just-" "Sit here while Ah find the best way to peel this rotten fruit an' turn him to applesauce. Yer new Sandwalker friend done told us how he provoked ya. Kin stick with kin, hun. Ah ain't 'bout to go back on what Ah gave ya this time." Applejack pawed at the earth, remembering the sinking feeling of getting lectured by Applebloom of all ponies all too well still. "I was trying to work past her mental blocks. She thinks too much. So I made her too angry to think." "By threatening her hoard, you foalish fledgeling? Thou art luck that Rainbow Dash caught thou when she didst." Luna snorted in frustration, scarring the earth with a grind of her hoof. "Yes. You've read her profile. It was the only way to make her act without thinking assuredly. Given that she has connected with her flight instincts now, the gamble was worth it." Redtail looked away from Luna to Twilight, who had begun to loom over the crowd as she growled like a great beast at him. She snorted, releasing a cloud of black smoke from her nostrils to curl around him like a swarm of insects. "I thank you for that." The dragoness's words were flat and deep, and most frighteningly void of the warmth and charm that Twilight normally carried in her voice. "But if you ever hurt, threaten, bully, or endanger my friendships again, I will remember my teleport spell and I will eat you." "Twi, be the bigger mare sugarcube." "Well that's not hard." Spike wisecracked before he crawled up onto his mother’s paw to calm her. "It's hard Mom, I know. But he can't hurt them much. And didn't you say that friendship grows the most when it hurts, Mom?" Twilight deflated as the words settled in. "Yes." She sighed as she felt how her blood still boiled. "I'm- I'm sorry, girls. I lost control." She looked to Fluttershy, flinching as the memory of the full force of the stare came to the forefront. "Kommandur, I think it is high time for you to head back to your country to prepare them." Sentry pronounced as he sat atop Twilight's other forepaw. He did his best not to glare at him all the same. Shining held no such compulsion, and only the glares of his sister, wife, and mother kept him from decking his old friend on the spot. "Gossie, I am well aware that you dislike the idea of having a dragon on the expedition to kill the lord of all dragons. I know that you have justifiable reasons to fear her and see her only as an asset. But you should have had a damn long look at her heart and the pony she used to be. MY SISTER, in case you forgot! If it wasn't for the fact that you are the only one who can convince and prepare Raptoria for the coming battle, I would be having far more than just words with you right now." Shining's horn lit slightly, only for his wife to snuggle against him to prevent him from doing something stupid. "You're too soft on her." "She just got out of a psychotic break from getting turned into a dragon!" "Shining!" Cadance smacked her husband upside his head with her wing. As he shut up to rub the tender spot, she forcibly turned his head to where Twilight was protectively curling her tail around her friends. "She'll be fine. Relax." "Relax? How can I relax when-" "Oh look! She has at least eight friends to talk to! And her son that she doesn't want to upset!" Velvet sarcastically remarked. Her son had gotten the worst of his father. Or maybe it was the best, hard to tell. She turned her gaze to Redtail, who flinched under its molten intensity. "You wouldn't want to make my grandson upset now, would you?" "No." Redtail growled as he sized them all up. Too damned sentimental, the lot of them. But if they were so deadset on the issue. "I will ask you this: how do you know that the Twilight you interact with is the real one instead of a puppet of Tirek?" He let his words sink in before continuing. "Thoughts to grin the blade with. I have done what was asked of me. I will ensure that Raptoria's squadrons are ready when you need them, good day." The griffon bowed before them all and left, winging into the air away from Ponyville. Sentry turned to Shining Armor, Velvet, and Luna while concernedly clearing his throat. "Uh, Bossman? And Bossman's Mom. And, uh, Princess. Who is supposed to teach her flight now?" His eyebrows twitched as a sinking sensation gradually ran to his hooves. A sinking sensation entirely unhelped by Dash clopping to the ground next to him and throwing a leg around his neck while a grin grew on her face that would make Pinkie Pie cry in pain. "Nevermind." Twilight turned to her mom with a despairing look on her face. "Mom, I'm really sorry. I- I shouldn't have let him get to me like that. I- I don't know how he got a reaction like that out of me. He said that my friends were too good for me, and that I was putting them in danger and-" Twilight choked up and began to slightly whine as she bowed her head in shame to her mother. "You hoard your friends, Mom. Like everypony has been saying. Kinda obvious." Spike said to her quietly, letting his mother shudder slightly. "Hard to stay calm when your hoard is threatened, believe me." Twilight nodded, the bobbing of her head slowing as the unpleasant implications sank in. "But- what if I get jealous of you girls making new friends? Or if I go crazy and lock you up to keep you safe?" Twilight started taking deep breaths without prompting as she felt her fears swirling around her. "Gotta let that greed out in small doses, Mom." Spike looked to Velvet, who looked as helpless as he felt. He could help her. He knew he could. "You've got to keep yourself from wanting stuff like that. Grandma helped me a bunch after 'Spike want!', I bet she can help you too!" Twilight sniffled slightly as she tried to keep a lid on herself. "Really?" "I can try, Twilight." To her surprise, it was Fluttershy who spoke up next. She certainly seemed to be speaking from experience as she timidly rubbed against her friend. "Its okay, Twilight. You feel weak inside, and you're scared anything might bring out the bad, no-good bits of yourself, like I am." The buttery pegasus slowly hovered up to look Twilight in the eyes. Not all that long ago, she had been in such a similar place to the dragoness. Pitying eyes visually comforted both of them as Fluttershy hesitantly hugged her. "I'd love to help. You need it." Mustari looked over the group, marveling at them. "Perhaps there may be a way we can use this, Nightmistress." "You're not thinking of-" "Perhaps." "I am not playing the villain." "But of course not! But, if Faust is willing, I know of a place for you."