//------------------------------//
// Our Guardian Angel 
// Story: The Greatest Lie In Equestrian History 
// by Deep 
//------------------------------//

The Element bearers had been frozen, as if the ice of Hearth's Warming Eve had never even left.

They stood with their eyes wide open and hooves still, all staring through one another. The temperature in the air was warm and only rose by the second, but all the six ponies did was freeze. Daring Do chuckled with a wide smirk over her face.

"Kinda obvious now isn't it?"

The bearers remained in their own worlds.

"Oh quit being so overdramatic!" Daring Do yelled, "Now that you guys know the truth... any comments?"

Applejack was the first to open her mouth, "Ah believe it... but I don't want to..."

"Agreed..." Rarity said, body still, "To think that somepony would actually conjure up such a spell.. makes me glad the book is in our possession now."

"Or ponies!" Dash yelled, "Let's not forget that these guys don't always work alone!"

"I just can't believe that somepony..." Fluttershy glanced at Dash, "Ponies... would want to use a spell like this."

"Ponysicles!" Pinkie screamed, "I'm with ya! Trying to take over Equestria is one thing, but trying to turn all of us into ice pops is crossing the line, mister! And it's not like we would've been juiced flavored or anything!"

The rest giggled.

Twilight was the only one that stayed silent. She stared inwards and stayed put with a face of extreme thought. Her ears were down, and the only force now able to move her was the shake of the earth itself.

"Where'd you find that book anyway?" Dash said, "I mean I know you said it was in a temple, but which one?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Daring Do stood tall, "So like I was saying, I wanted to get a head start on my next book and I was like 'Hmmm... now what place haven't I crept through? And that's when it hit me; I never once explored Equestria's past when it came to stuff like Hearth's Warming Eve."

"Er..." Applejack said, "Would you mind skippin' to the endin'?"

Daring Do glared at the cowpony. "So long story short, I found an old abandoned castle up in the frozen north from the time of Hearth's Warming Eve."

"Oh!" Rarity screamed, excited, "Did it belong to the Unicorn Kingdom? You cannot imagine how much I want to visit one of Princess Platinum's palaces!"

"That's the thing... I don't know who it belonged to." Daring Do paused, "The book was down in a locked room in the basement. It was surrounded by strongest force field I've ever come across; I'm talking about alicorn level magic! It was no match for my tools of course, but still. The rest of the place though... was just in ruins... I'm talking about the walls, the floor, even the entire top part was in pieces. It was like the entire place had been attacked by a thousand catapults or something."

"A battle perhaps?" Rarity said.

"It wasn't cuz of any fighting though; there weren't any debris from any weapons," Daring Do said. "It looked like the damage was done by... whoever was there... on purpose."

The Element bearers all paused, save for Twilight, at first from the news and then began chatting amongst each other on how villainous the culprit must've been.

"This pony's gettin' worse n' worse the more I think about em'!" Applejack said.

Twilight remained silent once again though, still lost in thought.

"Ah who cares!" Dash yelled, floating overhead with an annoyed face. Everyone stopped in their tracks and turned to her. "Some villain just wanted to either conquer Equestria... or whatever it was back then, or destroy ponykind or wanted ultimate power or something like that! It's the same story with all these guys! What matters is that they got their flanks hoofed to them and that we're still here and kickin'!"

"I disagree!" Applejack said, "Wantin' to take over or destroy Equestria is one thing, but them windigos woulda' killed everypony, including whoever conjured up this here spell."

Fluttershy spoke up, "I still can't believe somepony actually did this... but whatever they were thinking, I don't want to know.  I agree with Rainbow Dash." She then put her head and ears down with visible sadness over her face.

Twilight looked away from the others, still silent.

"Yeah, gotta agree with Dash," Daring Do said, "Knowing what what heck somepony was thinking over a thousand years ago isn't exactly easy, especially when this creep's done such a good job at covering his tracks." She sighed, "I mean, yeah, it'd be cool to know the full story about this, but not even I know where to start... It probably was just some wannabee villain... we got plenty of them now and there was definitely plenty back then."

"No..." Twilight blurted out.

The others turned to her. She refocused her gaze at them.

"No... I don't think that's it..."

"Oh come on!" Dash said, "I think it's pretty obvious at this point."

Twilight stepped closer to her friends, "It just can't be... At least not to me..."

"So what do you think it is?" Daring Do said.

Twilight chuckled, "You're all going to think I've gone crazy... at least more than usual... but I think whoever did this... wanted to save Equestria."

"Uh... Twilight," Applejack stared at her friend like a mental asylum escapee, "I don't think havin' everypony as a bunch a' ice pops is helpin' anypony."

"I know, I know..." Twilight said, "But... I just have this feeling... like my mind keeps on telling me to just go with it." She paused for a second, "Okay, the windigos feed off hatred, right? And the only thing that could've defeated them was friendship?"

"Yeeeaah..?" Dash said, glancing at Daring Do.

"Before the windigos, ponies were separated; all our races lived by themselves," Twilight said. "It was only after the windigos that we all became one... it was only because of them.

The others stood silent.

Twilight paused, "And more importantly, without all that happened, Clover the Clever would've never discovered the power of friendship... same with the others."

"I'm sorry, darling," Rarity said, "But what you are saying is simply preposterous and if I may be frank, offensive... You can't honestly believe that this was all some ploy to unite us."

"Yeah!" Dash yelled, "And what if it failed?! Well there goes everypony! Oops!"

"I know!" Twilight yelled back, "It's far fetched, but it just all makes sense to me... like I already know it, somehow..."

She continued, "The pony who did this... what they wanted was for all ponies to be united under one principle, the magic of friendship. They wanted friendship to be recognized as the strongest magic there is, and they were willing to go to any length to do so." She shut her eyes, and took a deep breath, "I hate to say this... but if it wasn't for the windigos, the power of friendship might've never been recognized... we would still live as before... separated. No Elements, no Equestria, no friendship... no us." Twilight lowered her head.

"I mean... now that I think about it..." Applejack said.

The room fell silent. Minutes passed, with the silence only growing colder.

Daring Do lifted her head, "So I guess the next question is, who?"