//------------------------------// // Beyond the Border // Story: The Return of the lost ruler // by Flutterftw123 //------------------------------// Beyond the Border Back in Ponyville the mane six are gathering together supplies for the long trip. Fluttershy packs up a large bag with bandages, ointments, antibacterial sprays, and other first aid items. Rainbow lugs out a couple of tents, canteens, and basic camping equipment. Rarity is packing raincoats, light jackets, and shade providing hats. AppleJack in charge of the food loads up a small cart with fresh apples, apple fritters, pies, crumpets, and plenty of raw ingredients and scavanging tools. Twilight loads her own saddle bags with a few quills, blank scrolls, reference books, and ALOT of ink(She wants to catalog any and everything new she discovers). And Pinkie, well Pinkie packs up only the essentials for a long periless journey into uncharted territory. That being streamers, confetti, balloons, noise makers, toys, and colorful cupcakes. As stated previously, THE ESSENTIALS! After each pony finished packing they agreed to meet at Fluttershy's cottage. "So, everypony here?" Asked Twilight as she did a mental head count. "Yup we're all here." Rainbow exclaimed eager for a new adventure. "Now hold your horses there Rainbow, Princess Luna t'aint here yet." Applejack said looking towards the sky. "She's right Rainbow, Princess Luna's our guide and only protection against Noir remember?" Twilight said looking at the impatient Pegasus. "I bet we wont even need the Princess, we can take on this Noir guy no problem." Rainbow said in extreme confidence and getting into a boxing pose. "I'm afraid not oh brave but foolish one." All the ponies jumped up out of surprise now noticing the dark Alicorn standing behind them. "Princess!" Twilight exclaimed more than a little excited to see her. "Good morning Twilight Sparkle, and to the rest of you as well." Luna looked towards the other five ponies. "I'll assume you're all prepared? Don't forget anything this will be a long and arduous journey." "Of course Princess, we each gathered what we would need, Fluttershy in charge of first aid, AppleJack has the food, Rainbow the tents and other camping gear, Rarity brought some protective clothes for the weather, I packed some quills and paper to document anything we see, and Pinkie.......well Pinkie brought........Pinkie stuff." Twilight listed off each of her friends responsibilities. "Very well then shall we go then? Oh and Twilight please Luna is fine." Luna said to Twilight and her friends with a warm smile much like her sisters. "Yea! Lets do this and teach that Noir who's boss." Rainbow bursting with enough excitement and confidence for all seven ponies. "It's good to such energetic confidence, but do not take Noir lightly, there was a reason he went uncontested for in terms of power for several millenia." Luna looked into the eager Pegasus' eyes and saw doubt. "Umm.....ok....." Rainbow said the wind from her sails swiftly taken away. "Um....Twilight....are you sure Spike will be fine not coming with us?" Fluttershy stepped closer to Twilight to get her attention. "Yup, I left him in good hooves, I sent him to Canterlot to stay with Princess Celestia till we return." Twilight conforted her weary friend, knowing she was in no way thrilled to start the journey. "All right then everypony let's depart!" Luna brought them to attention. "Uh, not to be a bother darling but how are we getting there? I don't see a chariot." Rarity looked behind Luna to make sure. "We must journey there on hoof, the path by sky would be far too dangerous, we'd be big easy targets in the air, not to mention the Wyverns that plague the skies in the outlands." Luna explained. At the sound Wyvern all the ponies, save for Pinkie, shuddered. "But I thought Wyverns were extinct." Twilight thought out loud. "In Equestria yes, but mostly due to my sisters influence, in the outlands they aren't exactly common but they do exist, but do not worry girls I am sure we are more than capable enough to handle a few Wyverns." Luna was trying to reassure the six. "Now if there are no more interuptions, shall we go?" Luna asked more than a little anxious herself to finish this before it got worse. "Yup." All six ponies answered in unison. Finally on their way Luna in front followed by the mane six. The journey through the Everfree forest to the border was relatively uneventful, except for a Manticore that came out of nowhere but quickly stopped its attack seeing Fluttershy and remembering what she did for him so long ago, Eeyup the SAME manticore, and just licked her and went its way. It had been almost five hours since they started and Luna halted the little caravan deciding that a rest was in order. AppleJack unpacked some of her treats and a couple of thermos' of applecider and applejuice. "Pri.....Luna if I may ask what was Noir like before he became.......well evil?" Twilight inquired while taking a bite of apple fritter. "Well Twilight, it was so long ago, yet I still remember his old self so fondly." Luna said closing her eyes remembering her older brither and a tear escaped her eye. "If it's too difficult you don't have to....." Twilight tried to say but was interuppted. "Not at all Twilight, it may be best that you all know more about your enemy....about my brother. The six ponies closed in tentatively waiting for the story at hand. "When I was but a little filly, so many eons ago, the only family I knew were my elder siblings Tia and Noir." "I never did find out about what happened to my parents." Luna said with a tinge of sadness in her voice. "But it didn't matter much to me, since I had Tia and Noir." "At the time Noir was the one who raised the sun and the moon, all by himself." "He was the picture of a benevolent diety." "He didn't always look like he did a day ago, he had a dark black coat, and a mane that looked almost like an everflowing wave of white fire. His wings were regal with perfectly preened feathers and his cutie mark was that of the sun and moon revolving around one another symbolizing balance and peace." "I remember once when I was young and still learning to fly I had crashed into a tree and scrapped up my knee, Noir came to me while I was crying on the ground and picked me up and placed me on his back." "What's wrong he asked me, I told him about me scrapping my knee and he just looked at me and gave a warm smile and said, what scrape? when I looked at my knee the scrape was gone and I almost forgot about the pain entirely." "He wasn't just kind and compasionate, he was also the most powerful being on the planet." "I once saw him bring a hundred Dragons to the ground with sheer magical force to stop them from destroying a small village with out breaking a sweat." "Once the Dragons saw my brother and witnessed his power they quickly turned tail and ran." Luna chuckled a little remembering all the full grown dragons wimpering at the sight of her brother. "But when the war broke out," Luna's tone changed to one full of sorrow. "Something inside him changed." "He began to look like he was disgusted at everything he saw in the ponies." "All the fighting, all the needless bloodshed, and all the needless suffering. He saw hell and he felt it's burn." "The ponies that once respected and reverred him were now at each others throat. And he made his heart vulnerable to darkness." Luna was now looking down at the ground as if it would hold the answers as to why her brother did what he did. "He changed, not just physically, but down to his heart he changed into something horrible." "At first he tried to justify his rule saying he was upholding this tryanny for the betterment of all pony kind." "But soon that all changed to pure insanity, the darkness that consumed his heart now broke him turning him into a psychotic dictator that saw the worst in all around him and went out of his way to bring it out." "He built a stadium that he would force ponies to fight in for his amusement, he held public beatings for any who opposed him, he even went so far as to have young fillies and colts taken from their parents to train for that stadium of his." "Tia and I couldn't stand it anylonger and we chalanged him, we had to fight our once beloved brother." "At first it was an utter failure, we couldn't hold a candle to his power, I remember the look on his face, that evil look, he was no longer my brother, just a villain that needed to be stopped." "As he stepped forward to finish us off, my sister withdrew the Elements of Harmony that we forged using Noir's teachings of harnesing the powers of natural Harmony." "The elements combined with both mine and Celestia's powers weren't enought thought, Noir still could've over powered us, so he first had to rip him of his power." "The Idol we are after now was what we used, it was created to take and give power, so we took his power and made him weak enough to seal." "We just couldn't bring ourselves to destroy our brother, and I thought we would never have to go through that pain again." There was silence amongst the group now as they took in the information. "That's terrible Luna, I couldn't imagine the pain you went through then." Twilight said as she nuzzled the now crying Princess. The other ponies followed suit and huddeled in a group hug with their princess. "Well I suppose we should get to bed then huh?" Luna said wiping the tears from her eyes. "Agreed, we have to reach the outlands as quickly as possible." Twilight said wiping her own tears away. "Yea, I'm beat from all this mushy feelly stuff." Rainbow said trying to hide her own tears, failing miserably as she was. "Eeyup." AppleJack said with her best impression of BigMac. This made all the girls giggle as they went off in pairs into their own tents with Luna getting her own. As the morning sun rose so did the ponies, Twilight was the first up and was writing in a journal. Pinkie followed next wiping the sleepiness from her eyes. "Sup Twi what ya doin?" Pinkie asked looking over Twilights shoulder. "Oh nothing, just cataloging the events of yesterday." Twilight answered never looking away from her journal. The rest of the group woke up shortly after and packed up their tents and took off. A good four or so hours later, none of them had a watch, they arrived at what Luna confirmed to be the edge of the Everfree forest and effectively the boarder of Equestria. They looked beyond the foliage into a dry and desolate wasteland, not a plant or animal in sight. Luna surveyed the parched land pointing in a single direction. "This way to the castle." She said as she stepped out into the dry cracked earth. As she emerged from the greenery though she was met with a loud roar as a large reptile with a long serpentine body, large batlike wings, and two slender bird like legs landed before them, half the size of a full grown dragon but three times as vicious. Luna stared with fear into the eyes of a Wyvern.