//------------------------------// // The Plan to Protect // Story: Successor // by Bronyman1000 //------------------------------// Present Time “Wait, so what really happened at the debate then?” Twilight asked. “It must have been dreadful to have to watch all the hateful comments being passed between the three tribes,” Rarity added. “Well, to be honest with you, we only went there for a few minutes. It was a good things too because what happened next still hurts Luna and I so very much up to this day,” Celestia said. “Princess, you don’t need to tell me about anything you don’t want me to know,” Fluttershy said in a sad and soft tone. “It’s ok Fluttershy. If Twilight is to become my successor, she must know everything she can. It is imperative for her to know about even the tiniest detail about the history of Equestria,” Celestia replied. “And because it’ll make it easier for her to understand what needs to be done and why,” Celestia thought to herself with great sadness. “Ok Princess. Please continue with your story,” Twilight said. “Well, as I was saying. Luna and I finished debating on what we were going to do. We decided it would be best to leave out the back and follow our parent’s hoofprints in the snow. Before that though we needed to think of a disguise so no pony would recognize us,” Celestia said with a smirk. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Past Time “Hey Celestia, how about this one?” Luna asked. “No, that one is way too obvious. We need something big enough to cover our faces without it falling off us because it’s too big,” Celestia replied. “Besides, you already have a cloak that fits you perfectly. It also covers your face, but no, you need to be the next princess of our land and be all spiffy when you go out…” Celestia said sarcastically. “Come on Celestia. We have to find something better for us. The nicer the cloaks are, the harder it’ll be for ponies to recognize us,” Luna argued. “But let’s remember that our family is there. If we wear something that we don’t normally wear they might recognize us. You and I both have cloaks we barely wore and yet you still insist on wearing something you wear all the time? Besides, we’re only going long enough to get a little information. If we’re only going to be there for a few minutes, what’s the point in dressing fancy? If anything, it’s going to make us stand out even more, even without our parents recognizing us,” Celestia argued. “Come on sis, I’m wearing my tacky cloak, why can’t you wear yours? This is your idea after all. If you wanted to go so badly, you would put that cloak of yours on and leave right now.” Luna sighed and gave herself a minute to think of a rebuttal. After a few minutes, she still didn’t have any rebuttal, so she did the most reasonable thing she could… “PLEASE SISTER, I’M BEGGING YOU. PLEASE FIND ME A CLOAK I CAN WEAR THAT’S NOT TOO OLD AND OUT OF FASION. PLEASE, BE A PAL!!! Luna begged. “No. Your silly begging antics won’t work on me this time…” Celestia said with a bit of sympathy in her voice. “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!” Luna said as she got on her knees and put on the most amazing sad puppy dog face she could muster. “If I say yes, can we leave immediately?” Asked Celestia. “Maybe…” Luna said with a smirk. “Luna,” Celestia said sternly. “Ok fine,” Luna replied. “Finally,” Celestia thought to herself. _________________________________________________________________________________________ It was a quiet and cold day in the land of the Unicorns as Celestia and Luna trekked through the snow and icy cold wind until an all too familiar sound was heard from all around them. “Hey sis, did you hear that?” asked Luna. As Luna asked her question she noticed the scared expression on Celestia’s face as she was facing what seemed to be a pony ghost. “Sis, what do we do?” Luna asked with a scared look on her face. “I don’t know Luna. We can’t out run it, and these things have magic that can cause a whole region to freeze in a span of ten minutes. We might just become a couple more frozen statues that have fallen prey to these things,” Celestia said. “What are they anyways?” Luna asked. “They’re a mysterious creature known as windigos. They feed off of hate and fighting. That’s why they’re here. With all the bickering going on in the church, it’s the perfect place for them to have a buffet.” “Well if we can’t do anything shouldn’t we try something?” Luna suggested. Suddenly, both the sisters heard a strange voice. It was the voice of an old pony. As the two sisters turned around to see the pony, they were met with dangerously serious eyes and a horn starting to blaze with magical energy. “Young fillies, if you wish to continue to live then duck,” the pony yelled. Celestia and Luna ducked as they heard a hum of a strange and powerful spell blasting forth from the unicorn’s horn. It hit the windigo, not killing it, but knocking it out cold. “Thank goodness I arrived here when I did. You two seemed like you needed a little magical help,” the old pony smiled. “Hey sis, do you know who this pony is? I’ve never seen him in my life,” Luna asked Celestia in a whisper. “Be quite Luna. This is the most wise and powerful unicorn as of this generation of unicorns. Most ponies never get to see him because he works on perfecting new spells, formulas and improving old ones every day. Luna, this is the great Star Swirl the Bearded,” Celestia said as she bowed before the great unicorn that stood in front of the sisters. “Hahaha. No need to bow Celestia. It was a pleasure to guard the two fillies of Horntail and Valentine,” he said. “What are you doing Mr. Star Swirl?” Luna asked “You need not worry about what I’m doing right now. All you need to know is I’m leaving this region to explore a secret spell that may help us keep balance between the tribes.” As he finished speaking, the fainted windigo had the slightest hint of movement in his joints, signaling that Star Swirl’s spell was fading. “You best hurry to the church. I fear that many tragedies will soon follow after today’s meeting. I don’t know what this journey I’m going on will lead to, but I’m willing to take that gamble if it means bring peace, balance and harmony to us all. I must bid you two, adieu,” he said. “He’s right Luna; we better hurry to the church. I have to agree with Star Swirl’s bad feeling. Whatever is going down at the church, it’s what’s causing these windigos to show,” Celestia said. “What about Star Swirl?” Luna asked. “We don’t need to concern ourselves with what he’s doing. He’s able to handle himself just fine; after all he is the one who saved us from this windigo.” Once again, the windigo twitched its leg more effectively, showing the two ponies that Star Swirls spell only had a few minutes to go before it wore off completely. “We need to leave now,” Celestia said. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Present Time “So you knew Star Swirl the Bearded?” Twilight asked. “Not much. I knew he was a pony that anypony could trust. He was wise and powerful beyond imagination. You should know this already; after all you did fix his secret spell didn’t you?” Celestia said. Twilight blushed as she looked at her wings. “So that’s how y’all got away from those nasty windigos. I didn’t believe those vermin could be capable of that kind of magic,” Applejack said. “Oh but they are. Windigos aren’t creatures you should mess around with. They have more magical capabilities than that. They can freeze ponies in place then feed of their hatred, they can become invisible and they can cause unnatural storms,” Fluttershy said. “What did you become such an expert on these creatures?” Rarity asked. “I kinda snuck into Twilight’s library and found a book on ancient and extinct creatures. I put it back into place I swear,” Fluttershy said, quite frightened. “It’s ok Fluttershy. I’m sure it was for a good reason. Besides, a library is a place where anypony can be,” Twilight said Fluttershy blushed. “Get to the part where you got the church already. I’m interested in what happened there,” Rainbow Dash said. “Calm down Rainbow,” Twilight said sternly. “Yeah, we can’t rush Princess Celestia. Not when we need popcorn refills,” Pinkie Pie yelled from across the room, standing near a popcorn machine that was somehow on a table that no pony seemed to have noticed. As the pony’s jaws dropped as they tried to comprehend where and when the popcorn machine came from, Celestia gave a quick chuckle and continued her story. “Well Rainbow Dash, you’re lucky that I’m almost at the part that you’ve been expecting. I’ll get to what happened to the church but you might not believe what happened next,” Celestia said. “I still can’t believe it myself,” she added with a hint of sadness in her voice. “Anyways, as I was saying, Luna and I walked after our conversation about the windigos and what we thought was going down at the church…” _________________________________________________________________________________________ Past Time Luna and Celestia continued their walk towards the church. What felt like hours in the cold and icy wind, was only a ten minute walk. The sisters had to endure more unnatural weather as they got closer to the church, making sure that whenever they saw a windigo, they would hide until it disappeared. Finally they arrived at the church. When they walked inside however, the two sisters could only watch in horror at what was happening. Everywhere, pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns were attacking each other. Unicorns firing any offensive spell they could use, earth ponies using signature hoof kicks and pegasi using the advantage of flight, ponies everywhere were being thrown like rags. “What the hay happened here?” Celestia asked. “What are you two doing here?” A pony cried. “Stan!!!” Luna said as she pointed to the pony she just named. “I thought your parents told you to go to school?” “Well ummm, we called in sick?” Luna said. Stan sighed. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’re here. Your parents are taking care of business right now. What happened here, well, the three tribe leaders were debating on a new issue that had been arising in this world, and it seemed that it became a debate on insults. In a rage, the leader of the pegasi, Commander Hurricane, leader of the earth ponies, Chancellor Pudding Head and our own Princess Platinum left the meeting. After that, this is what came. Star Swirl the Bearded left because he found a potential way to create harmony and peace between the tribes and that left the three tribes to fight. Your parents took anypony who believed in the idea of making peace between the tribes to the back where they’re discussing compromises and ideas right now. They knew doing this would leave these ponies defenseless so they put me in charge of making sure we have minimal damage, death and violence.” “What can we do?” Celestia asked. “You can leave before any more windigos come in. We can’t afford to lose you two. You have to hurry now,” Stan said. Suddenly, the howling of windigos rushed through the open doors of the church. What followed was about fifteen windigos flooding into the room, freezing everypony they could get their hooves on. “WINDIGOS!!!” Celestia yelled. “Hurry to the back, your parents should be done by now, I hope. We’ll be safe in there at the very least.” “Luna lets go,” Celestia yelled over the wind the windigos were creating. “O-ok,” Luna stuttered. “Let’s hurry,” Stan said. In the back, Horntail and Valentine were talking with the ponies that weren’t battling each other. “If we unicorns keep the weather going, all we asked from the rest of you is a little more food. We will give the pegasi extra aid in weather control to make food easy to grow. This should help everypony,” Valentine said. “Look honey, we have company,” Horntail whispered. “So if everypony is in agreement on these conditions, we will all speak with our leaders about this and try to convince them about this plan. If you are ok with this, say Aye." “Aye," everypony in the room said. “Dismissed!!!” Horntail yelled. “NO!!!” Stan yelled. “NOPONY MOVE!!! WE GOT WINDIGOS OUT THERE,” Stan yelled out. As Stan warned everypony, they panicked. As everypony was panicking, Horntail and Valentine trotted over to Stan, Celestia and Luna. “What are you two doing here? Now is the worst time for you to be here. Your mother and I specifically told you not to come here,” Horntail said, quite angrily. “Nooooo, you told us to go to school. You never said anything about not coming here,” Luna said. “Luna, watch your mouth,” Valentine said angrily. Horntail sighed. “Look Valentine. We need these two to help now more than ever. We can’t get it. Not now. It’s not our path in life and you know it. With Star Swirl going on his own quest. We need them to retrieve the book.” “What book?” Celestia asked. Horntail sighed again. “Long long ago, back before the ponies of this world knew about the other tribes, there was a mysterious underground ruin where two unicorns lived. They worked day and night, creating a spell to control the most life sustaining creations to be gifted to us. The sun, and moon. They created this spell knowing that there was more to the sun and moon. It’s true we unicorns have the power to control them, but only TRUE unicorns, pure of heart, noble and courageous could harness the full power of these spells. They say the magic in this book can only be read by the chosen ponies. “How will anypony know who the chosen ponies are if they can’t read the book?” asked Celestia. "The good thing is that anypony can read the section at the back of the book on who the two chosen ponies will be. They’re two chosen ponies. This book will enable the users to harness the energies both sun and moon at will. They would be blessed with unique spells only capable of working with the energy of the sun and moon respectively. This book may help us in overcoming the threat the pegasi and earth ponies may send. This book is only a last resort though. The journey will be filled with danger. Your mother and I know you two are old and smart enough to overcome these obstacles. The map to the spell is in our room. It can only be opened from a member of our family. You’ll know the spell when you see the lock. Hurry, get the map and find the book, return it to our home. Then we can decipher who the two ponies are," Horntail said. Just as he finished speaking, at least a dozen windigos barged into the room they were speaking in. They had hunger in their eyes and were ready to freeze everypony in the room until Horntail’s horn sparked. “Everypony, get behind me NOW!!!” He yelled. Horntail tried to fend off the windigos, but he knew in his heart he could not defend everypony in the room and church unless he did one last thing. “Valentine, we have to try to stop these things. We have to give it our all,” Horntail whispered to Valentine. “But you know what will happen,” Valentine whispered back. “I know. But it’s the only way we can protect everypony here, including our children,” Horntail said. “If we really do this, will the ponies here really thaw out?” she asked. “I don’t know, but we got to pray that it does. It’s better than nothing right? So if you’re ready, we’ll begin.” “What are two about to do?” Luna asked. Celestia looked up at Stan and saw that he had tears in his eyes, as if he knew what they were planning. “Take care of them Stan. They’re our last hope for peace and prosperity here,” Horntail yelled with tears in his eyes as he charged up his horn. “Remember you two, we love you,” Valentine yelled, also welling up with tears as she charged up her own horn as well. “Stan, get them prepared and make sure they leave all right. We’re counting on you,” Horntail said. “You two don’t have to do this you know,” Stan said. “No, we must. It’s our duty to do this if we want to ensure peace will reign in our world. We are willing to do whatever it takes,” Horntail said. “MOM, DAD!!!” Celestia and Luna yelled. “Stay back!!! Stan said while fighting back tears. Your father is right. This is the only way we can save everypony here, including you. We can’t stop them; just let them finished what they started.” “We have to help them!!!” Luna yelled. “Please, I’m asking you. Don’t help them. They can take care of themselves. I don’t want it to end up with me having to do what I need.” “I don’t care. I’m helping them,” Celestia said. As she finished speaking Celestia tried to jump into the fight to try and help, but she couldn’t help but stay stuck in place. As she looked left, she noticed Stan had cast a freeze spell on both her and Luna. All Celestia could do was watch as Horntail and Valentine fired the energy blast they charged. As they fired the spell Celestia could only watch in horror at the terror that unfolded. The hum of the spell got louder and louder, the room started to radiate with a powerful energy, far beyond any magic a unicorn should be able to perform with their limit on magic. The energy blast was felt throughout the entire church. As Horntail and Valentine turned their heads to see their fillies one last time, all Celestia could say was “nooo” before she collapsed and blacked out into nothing…